My Creative Process in Four Sandwich Ingredients

Creatively-speaking, I get things done. Eventually. But it’s not without a struggle.

I love being in creative projects, but to get there has always been a problem. I’ve been winging it. But life’s a journey, bro, and this week I approach it with “science”. Or at least a technical-looking thing I designed.

Following suggestions from some smart people, I’ve been mapping out my own creative process and philosophy (ugh, that sounds so pretentious), but it’s been a helpful and fun audit. Yes, I wrote “audit” and “fun” in the same sentence. Don’t get me going about spreadsheets.

I’ve quantified my “practice”, or more realistically, my ideal practice, into four quadrants. Or four sandwich ingredients… I’ve included bacon if you need it to stay focused. This isn’t a sequence or hierarchy. It’s just four things to think about keeping in balance.

One of the quadrants gave me permission to see F1 last night.

One of the quadrants gives me a free pass to totally zone out.

One of the quadrants is really hard to get into (and out of).

But there’s a quadrant where we spend too much time.

We spend too much time here out of fear. Often, you know, ahem, watching YouTube. Or at least I do. It’s always fear… of failing, of creating something imperfect… of “they’re all going to laugh at you”.

As I get into my forties, I’m maturing — hopefully thriving — into a totally cringe dad, and have realised that fear of failure/judgement has kept me back so much in life. Even as I overcome the fearful impulse to not post a video EVERY TIME. I remind myself “who cares!”.

And the kicker is that nothing the fear tried to scare me with has ever come true. It’s been completely the opposite.

But we keep finding excuses to not jump into the best part of my sandwich – Creative Development… I think I should have made this the bacon.

I figure the tomato is the healthiest.

I equated the saltiness of the bacon to that sparkle of a new idea when it first comes.

Don’t start asking where the mayo is though.

Quantifying this was the easy part. Putting it into practice is that eternal climb… But at least we’ve started.

Thanks for reading the newsletter while I figure out what this even is.

What a ride.

New video here.