how to cultivate creativity

The right way to deal with new ideas is to treat them as a challenge to your imagination — not just to have lower standards, but to

switch polarity

entirely, from listing the reasons an idea won't work to trying to think of ways it could. That's what I do when I meet people with new ideas.

Paul Graham • Early Work

Austin Kleon, a prolific creator and writer, says that “creative work runs on uncertainty; it runs on not knowing what you’re doing.”⁠

Paul Millerd • The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life

Creativity > Productivity

“You need time. And that doesn’t mean necessarily even working full-time on it itself; it means time to throw some ideas together and let them sit, go off and do something else, come back and see what still feels right.”

–Christopher Nolan

Britton Perelman • Just a moment...

Though artists generally aren’t aware of it, that end work is a by-product of a greater desire. We aren’t creating to produce or sell material products. The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is

Rick Rubin • The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.

— Charles Mingus via Daily Creative podcast

a moodboard on creating through the fear

Sari Azout • a moodboard on creating through the fear

I am convinced that when we’re drawn to someone else’s creative output, it’s not so much the work that attracts us as it is the energy that drives it — the confidence, emotionality, or sheer authenticity that underlies its production.

Upgrade to paid

I have an insanely talented friend who has an incredible understanding of design and when he second g... See more