The Real Cost for being Productive
This morning, before 8am, I had already received 2 emails about how to be more productive, complete with worksheets.
Last week I got an email about how to defeat procrastination. It was a link to a series of 5 videos.
Evernote is all the rage as are so many other tools for being more productive.
But what is the real real cost of getting everything done and becoming hyper productive?
Well, it's not your soul... it's your CREATIVITY.
Let's get Something Straight
- Creative Ideas do not come from being productive
- Creativity does not have it's origin in productivity. In fact, Creativity is the Antithesis of Productivity.
- Great Ideas and Creativity are the result of 2 things working together.
1. The Slow Cooking of many past ideas and thoughts all waiting for a connection with something related or seemingly unrelated to catalyze a group of them into one single great thought or idea. We call this the Moment of Inspiration or, simply, a creative moment and they happen when something new moves into that slow cooking circle of thoughts and ideas.
2. Exposure and Expansion is the second thing that works together with the slow cooking of past ideas to make us more creative and bring about great ideas. This Expansion occurs thru New Knowledge, New Experiences and thru Asking Questions.
We need to feed ourselves by exposing ourselves to new and different things. This new knowledge, new experiences and questions are the catalytic fuel for those past thoughts and ideas in the slow cooker. A new ingredient gets added and BANG... it reacts with things we are not even consciously thinking of and groups them into a single great thought or idea.
We expand our frame of reference to the point where something unplanned and seemingly unrelated enters the picture and all at once makes these connections with past thought and ideas.
Here is a little chart comparing Productivity and Creativity:
| PRODUCTIVITY | CREATIVITY |
| Linear | Non Linear |
| Bulleted List | Free Flowing |
| Focused | Occurs when not focused |
| Mental Effort | Open State of Being |
| Results Oriented | Possibilities Oriented |
| Consumes Energy | Creates Energy |
| Planned | Spontaneous |
Creativity is the application of a thought or idea... challenge or problem to different frames of reference.
But what if that frame of reference is not yet part of our experience?
1. The idea, problem or challenge gets put in the slow cooker
2. We feed, expose and expand into new and different frames of reference. It's called personal growth.
Eventually this expansion will catalyze our past thoughts and ideas, ideas which have now come into their own time.
That's one reason we write.... to capture thoughts and ideas and then to remember them as we re-read our journals
And, when Inspiration is catalyzed and strikes, we better be ready to record it all, suck everything we can out of that moment. It's a moment that will not wait for a convenient time to write it all down and, it's a moment that will not be repeated and, if it is not remembered will be forgotten. Our choice, write it down or forget it by default.
Productivity and Creativity are both needed for balance. We can't have all these ideas and then do nothing, or very little, about them.
All I am suggesting is that with such an over emphasis on productivity, the pendulum needs to swing to the side of alternate considerations for balance. We need both and both work together.
Wednesday I am torn with what to write about. Help me decide.
Here are the choices. What would you like to hear about?
1. How Evernote and digital memory tools hurt our creativity
2. The root issue of why people procrastinate.
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