reflection
It’s the fiftieth entry in my open creative journal, and this is a great opportunity to reflect on the past seven weeks.
In the introduction to Habit Zero I wrote that creativity must be practiced and experienced — you must turn it into a habit if you want to make the most of it. With that concept, I started to record my creative exploration and share it with you.
When I initially thought about the idea, my motivation was to show how I use seempli be used on a daily basis — every day with a brand new creative challenge — and what impact it has. With that in mind, I defined the format of each entry.
Without really thinking about it in advance, I added a mental notes section. And it is this section that surprised me the most in retrospect. I thought it would be useful to include some insights about creativity on top of the daily challenge. I didn’t really think I will have a new insight about creativity every day.
When I read these mental notes now, I realize the only way for me to come up with them was to experience the daily challenge. They result from a short, yet intentional, reflection on what I did each day. So in fact, the challenges originally designed to practice creativity resulted in insights about creativity. A new insight every day.
And that’s the beauty of the creative process. When you are engaged in a creative activity, whether it is a challenge for practice as we did, a creative hobby, or solving a problem at work, so many unexpected things can happen. You can go on a photo walk and come up with an insight about a problem at home. You can look for a solution to a personal problem and end up with an insight about a professional challenge you face at work.
Our brain operates in mysterious ways. We rarely understand why we think of something at a specific moment. But this does not mean we can’t use this hectic operation mode to our benefit. We need not fight it — we need to encourage it and flow with it.
If you have been taking an active part in this journey, I invite you to explore the Insights you have captured in the past weeks and reflect on them. Don’t try to make sense of them, but do try to understand something about your creative process. You will be able to use these insights when you have to turn your next challenge into an opportunity.
I’ll see you tomorrow. Be creative!
mental notes
- Don’t fight the hectic operation mode of your brain. Embrace it.
now it is your turn… reflect on your journey so far!