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Friday, October 20, 2017
Your Idea Will Never Be Ready
lifehacker.com: A large source of my creative procrastination comes from this notion that my idea “just isn’t ready yet,” like it’s fruit ripening on a tree. But you know what? That’s bullshit.
This is an excellent point. I myself have often fallen victim to this thought process. I love the idea that your work is going to suck at first but that as you continue to practice, to put ideas out there and to follow your impulses that over time you will improve. This really does seem to follow the mantra of “practice makes perfect”. This article actually lead me to another article entitled “you don’t have a procrastination problem, you have an impulsivity problem”. This article as its title suggests says that talks about how the people who have the biggest problems in productivity and accomplishing things is that they have a hard time managing their motivations and follow whatever their impulses are instead of focusing on what they need to do. In a way I think that theses things are tied. Often in both these circumstances it can be hard to commit to something as either your impulses pull you away or they tell you that your ideas will never be ready. Both are a lack in the ability to commit.
I think this tendency to wait for the idea to be ready comes from the notion than one can sort of passively flesh and idea out. If you have part of the plan but there are missing pieces, if you imagine those missing pieces will fill themselves in, it is easy enough to assume you can just wait to come up with the rest. But really working out the idea is part of the process, even if there is some anxiety focused with the uncertainty surrounding the gaps in the idea. In the end planning, brainstorming, or waiting for things to be just right will never get things done, there will always be a point where you just have to get started and revise, refine, and work out the details as you go. I think part of the problem also might be the feeling that once you start you are locked into an idea, when really the idea can change as you go since working on it will inevitably lead to both new ideas you want to incorporate and problems to have to solve.
I always have trouble finishing and presenting an idea to others when I start it. This idea of it never 'being ready' I think comes, at least in my experience, from the nerves of feeling like you can always do better. As a perfectionist, what I have is never enough. I'm constantly finding the tiny flaws in my work and everything that still needs polishing, that could be tweaked here or there, until I'm so deep into revising and redoing my work that I never complete it. And when I do finish things, like handing in a project or finishing a piece for class, it's never quite right. Ideas not being ready really means you always seeing something to fix, and that in and of itself is dangerous and can lead to creative stagnation that's harder to work through than simply working on the piece or idea in the first place.
The claim that my idea will never be ready really strikes me. Part of my creative process is allowing an idea or concept to sit and ferment in the back of my mind for a while before I actively interact with it. As such, it's always easy for me to put off an assignment or project and procrastinate until I'm 'ready'. While I recognize that at some point, pen does in fact need to hit paper for an idea to come to life, I disagree with the author when he writes that allowing an idea to percolate in your head is "bullshit." The only BS here is that he fails to recognize the fact that everyone's creative process is different. I, for one, cannot simply take an idea and flesh it out immediately. To do so lowers the quality of my work as an artist and an academic. Often, in allowing my ideas to sit for a time instead of working with them right off the bat, the evolve into newer, more honed starting points that allow me to write and create more effective pieces.
You are your own worst enemy. I tell that to myself time to time when I am stuck on a detail that is holding me back. This author seems to forget that not everyone thinks like he does. If I want to let an idea percolate, that is not BS. That is how my brain functions. I need to let ideas percolate, I need to write them down, edit and revise them and let them simmer. It’s how I get some of my best work done. Do you want it right or do you want it now? Creative people need time to create. The masterpiece, The Mona Lisa by DaVinci would probably not be the way it is or as famous had he simply just painted it in one afternoon. I could be wrong on that. It is a DaVinci after all. Now I want to go read an article of DaVinci. See how that work’s? That’s my brain. I come up with an idea, start the process and then set it aside and move on to something else. I’ve had an artist painting kit sitting in my living room since Christmas of last year. I have’t used it yet. The ideas are still percolating. Canvas is expensive. I’m a grad student. That’s how my brain works. This article is not how my brain works. Everyone creates differently and everyone learns differently. Truly great artists are those who know both how they learn and how they create and can merge the two worlds together. That is what genius looks like. I think. I could be wrong, but I don’t care. I’ll seek to discover that later. That’s how my brain works.
This is a truth that being at CMU has definitely helped me learn. There is no magical way for your idea to come to fruition, no epiphany that will come along and suddenly complete your idea. There are definitely epiphanies that help further your idea, but none that fully flesh it out or forge it into a finished product. The way you complete an idea, or really complete any design or vision, is to start it and work at it. There are unfortunately no magical solutions to getting better. You just work at it (often feeling as if you're trying to bust your head through a brick wall) until it resembles the idea you were searching for. Now there are certainly times where you need to take a step back and let your subconscious work the problem while you do other things, but ultimately getting back in there is what gets your idea to a place where it can actually be realized.
Oddly enough - or perhaps rightly so - this article also really speaks to my second major, creative writing. Or maybe it is simply that this process is easiest to see in creative writing. As the author states, there are all these ideas - I personally have a list that stretches back several years saved on my phone - that we're waiting on to cure, or feel legitimate, or to miraculously develop in the back of our minds. There's also a safety to be found in keeping an idea in limbo; if no one can see it, then certainly no one can judge it.
On the whole, I really think this notion of something being "not good enough" feeds into the culture of procrastination that really seems so pervasive in our society. I think the idea of not developing or working on something today if it *might* be better tomorrow goes hand in hand with procrastination. "Not good enough" is simply the excuse we use to keep pushing actually working on something off.
I really agree with this author that many people tend to say they're still thinking of ideas when they're actually procrastinating, and that definitely includes me. The thing that I'm the worst about this with are essays. I'll spend a lot of time finding books that have to do with my topic and reading them as research, and I'll make sure that I've written a solid outline. Still after all of that prep work I just can't seem to force myself to actually write the essay until the last minute. I used to think that this was because I "worked well under pressure" but in reality I think I just have a hard time focusing on the task at hand. If I just written my paper as soon as I finished the outline I wouldn't be rushing and running out of time. One thing that I have done which has helped me in the past is to write the deadline for a project at least three days early in my planner. That way I can trick myself into doing the project earlier and leave some time to spare.
When I saw the title of this article, I knew it was written for (people like) me. My procrastination is rooted in unrealistic perfectionism where I would think of doing a lot of things, but in fact would do nothing because they are not perfect yet, and if I just think for a little more or leave the ideas alone for some time, the “epiphany” will come, and I will be able to do things smoothly and they will be perfect. But part of me knows that this is just a fantasy that I coax myself into believing, and that I would probably never turn these ideas into action because I know it’s going to be a hard, painstaking process. I think having been here for about 3 years, watching various creative process from the beginning, observing how other people work, seeing the initial version of everything and the end results onstage, I’m more comfortable with the notion that there is no “ready” ever, you just need to start, and 9 times out of 10, the first draft will suck, but as long as we keep working on it, it will get better and that’s the only way for us to achieve excellence in the work we do.
This concept was something I know I struggled with during freshmen year and before I declared as a sophomore. In those design classes, I would often wait for a long time to really start on the project, because I didn't think my idea was ready. I remember Dick once told me, that I need to get over my fear of a blank piece of paper. I never wanted to start the actually project because I was afraid it was wrong, or not good enough. But, I think the article hits on a really good point, that its only once you start, or at least have something that you can begin to change and get feedback to improve your work. The concept that an idea will never be ready is very true, and I do not think that it is always due to procrastination that you do not start. I think it can come from many things, like fear of failure, wanting something better. But, if you want to improve your idea its best to start going with what you have, because then you will actually see what makes it good and where it can be better.
Much like many design and production students have written above this comment I feel like you could put that on a T-shirt and hand it out to every DP on their first day of classes. When I first started school here and all at once everyone was like "come up with a genius idea in 15 minutes thats going to reinvent theater and art as we know it" needless to say I was freaked out. But the truth of it all is that that question is meant to be impossible to answer, and that your ideas are never going to be stagnant, and that is part of what makes them great. A person who has an idea and then leaves it, and doesn't continue to develop it will never be able to do anything truly remarkable with the idea. It is important to continue to improve and to know that when you come up with idea, or the first pass at solving a problem that solution is almost never the right one. There is workshopping to be done, and other people to consult and the biggest lesson is that perfection doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean you can't or you should strive for it.
The concept of achieving “perfection” and an idea or art piece or design being “ready” is a controversial one in this field. Our ideas are never finished or ready; we are always making improvements. And while this notion that your ideas are never ready is good for pushing to improve and reinvent, on the flip side we have to decide when enough is enough and when we should “call it done.” It is a difficult process but one every artist, designer, or maker has to go through. I am of the belief that ideas do come to you at a certain time, and you must develop the idea and work towards something better than what you started with. I used to struggle with coming up with a solid base idea and thought that this meant that I was not creative or not meant for this field, however I’ve learned now that I just need to make tweaks until I am comfortable with it.
12 comments:
This is an excellent point. I myself have often fallen victim to this thought process. I love the idea that your work is going to suck at first but that as you continue to practice, to put ideas out there and to follow your impulses that over time you will improve. This really does seem to follow the mantra of “practice makes perfect”. This article actually lead me to another article entitled “you don’t have a procrastination problem, you have an impulsivity problem”. This article as its title suggests says that talks about how the people who have the biggest problems in productivity and accomplishing things is that they have a hard time managing their motivations and follow whatever their impulses are instead of focusing on what they need to do. In a way I think that theses things are tied. Often in both these circumstances it can be hard to commit to something as either your impulses pull you away or they tell you that your ideas will never be ready. Both are a lack in the ability to commit.
I think this tendency to wait for the idea to be ready comes from the notion than one can sort of passively flesh and idea out. If you have part of the plan but there are missing pieces, if you imagine those missing pieces will fill themselves in, it is easy enough to assume you can just wait to come up with the rest. But really working out the idea is part of the process, even if there is some anxiety focused with the uncertainty surrounding the gaps in the idea. In the end planning, brainstorming, or waiting for things to be just right will never get things done, there will always be a point where you just have to get started and revise, refine, and work out the details as you go. I think part of the problem also might be the feeling that once you start you are locked into an idea, when really the idea can change as you go since working on it will inevitably lead to both new ideas you want to incorporate and problems to have to solve.
I always have trouble finishing and presenting an idea to others when I start it. This idea of it never 'being ready' I think comes, at least in my experience, from the nerves of feeling like you can always do better. As a perfectionist, what I have is never enough. I'm constantly finding the tiny flaws in my work and everything that still needs polishing, that could be tweaked here or there, until I'm so deep into revising and redoing my work that I never complete it. And when I do finish things, like handing in a project or finishing a piece for class, it's never quite right. Ideas not being ready really means you always seeing something to fix, and that in and of itself is dangerous and can lead to creative stagnation that's harder to work through than simply working on the piece or idea in the first place.
The claim that my idea will never be ready really strikes me. Part of my creative process is allowing an idea or concept to sit and ferment in the back of my mind for a while before I actively interact with it. As such, it's always easy for me to put off an assignment or project and procrastinate until I'm 'ready'. While I recognize that at some point, pen does in fact need to hit paper for an idea to come to life, I disagree with the author when he writes that allowing an idea to percolate in your head is "bullshit." The only BS here is that he fails to recognize the fact that everyone's creative process is different. I, for one, cannot simply take an idea and flesh it out immediately. To do so lowers the quality of my work as an artist and an academic. Often, in allowing my ideas to sit for a time instead of working with them right off the bat, the evolve into newer, more honed starting points that allow me to write and create more effective pieces.
You are your own worst enemy. I tell that to myself time to time when I am stuck on a detail that is holding me back. This author seems to forget that not everyone thinks like he does. If I want to let an idea percolate, that is not BS. That is how my brain functions. I need to let ideas percolate, I need to write them down, edit and revise them and let them simmer. It’s how I get some of my best work done. Do you want it right or do you want it now? Creative people need time to create. The masterpiece, The Mona Lisa by DaVinci would probably not be the way it is or as famous had he simply just painted it in one afternoon. I could be wrong on that. It is a DaVinci after all. Now I want to go read an article of DaVinci. See how that work’s? That’s my brain. I come up with an idea, start the process and then set it aside and move on to something else. I’ve had an artist painting kit sitting in my living room since Christmas of last year. I have’t used it yet. The ideas are still percolating. Canvas is expensive. I’m a grad student. That’s how my brain works. This article is not how my brain works. Everyone creates differently and everyone learns differently. Truly great artists are those who know both how they learn and how they create and can merge the two worlds together. That is what genius looks like. I think. I could be wrong, but I don’t care. I’ll seek to discover that later. That’s how my brain works.
This is a truth that being at CMU has definitely helped me learn. There is no magical way for your idea to come to fruition, no epiphany that will come along and suddenly complete your idea. There are definitely epiphanies that help further your idea, but none that fully flesh it out or forge it into a finished product. The way you complete an idea, or really complete any design or vision, is to start it and work at it. There are unfortunately no magical solutions to getting better. You just work at it (often feeling as if you're trying to bust your head through a brick wall) until it resembles the idea you were searching for. Now there are certainly times where you need to take a step back and let your subconscious work the problem while you do other things, but ultimately getting back in there is what gets your idea to a place where it can actually be realized.
Oddly enough - or perhaps rightly so - this article also really speaks to my second major, creative writing. Or maybe it is simply that this process is easiest to see in creative writing. As the author states, there are all these ideas - I personally have a list that stretches back several years saved on my phone - that we're waiting on to cure, or feel legitimate, or to miraculously develop in the back of our minds. There's also a safety to be found in keeping an idea in limbo; if no one can see it, then certainly no one can judge it.
On the whole, I really think this notion of something being "not good enough" feeds into the culture of procrastination that really seems so pervasive in our society. I think the idea of not developing or working on something today if it *might* be better tomorrow goes hand in hand with procrastination. "Not good enough" is simply the excuse we use to keep pushing actually working on something off.
I really agree with this author that many people tend to say they're still thinking of ideas when they're actually procrastinating, and that definitely includes me. The thing that I'm the worst about this with are essays. I'll spend a lot of time finding books that have to do with my topic and reading them as research, and I'll make sure that I've written a solid outline. Still after all of that prep work I just can't seem to force myself to actually write the essay until the last minute. I used to think that this was because I "worked well under pressure" but in reality I think I just have a hard time focusing on the task at hand. If I just written my paper as soon as I finished the outline I wouldn't be rushing and running out of time. One thing that I have done which has helped me in the past is to write the deadline for a project at least three days early in my planner. That way I can trick myself into doing the project earlier and leave some time to spare.
When I saw the title of this article, I knew it was written for (people like) me. My procrastination is rooted in unrealistic perfectionism where I would think of doing a lot of things, but in fact would do nothing because they are not perfect yet, and if I just think for a little more or leave the ideas alone for some time, the “epiphany” will come, and I will be able to do things smoothly and they will be perfect. But part of me knows that this is just a fantasy that I coax myself into believing, and that I would probably never turn these ideas into action because I know it’s going to be a hard, painstaking process. I think having been here for about 3 years, watching various creative process from the beginning, observing how other people work, seeing the initial version of everything and the end results onstage, I’m more comfortable with the notion that there is no “ready” ever, you just need to start, and 9 times out of 10, the first draft will suck, but as long as we keep working on it, it will get better and that’s the only way for us to achieve excellence in the work we do.
This concept was something I know I struggled with during freshmen year and before I declared as a sophomore. In those design classes, I would often wait for a long time to really start on the project, because I didn't think my idea was ready. I remember Dick once told me, that I need to get over my fear of a blank piece of paper. I never wanted to start the actually project because I was afraid it was wrong, or not good enough. But, I think the article hits on a really good point, that its only once you start, or at least have something that you can begin to change and get feedback to improve your work. The concept that an idea will never be ready is very true, and I do not think that it is always due to procrastination that you do not start. I think it can come from many things, like fear of failure, wanting something better. But, if you want to improve your idea its best to start going with what you have, because then you will actually see what makes it good and where it can be better.
Much like many design and production students have written above this comment I feel like you could put that on a T-shirt and hand it out to every DP on their first day of classes. When I first started school here and all at once everyone was like "come up with a genius idea in 15 minutes thats going to reinvent theater and art as we know it" needless to say I was freaked out. But the truth of it all is that that question is meant to be impossible to answer, and that your ideas are never going to be stagnant, and that is part of what makes them great. A person who has an idea and then leaves it, and doesn't continue to develop it will never be able to do anything truly remarkable with the idea. It is important to continue to improve and to know that when you come up with idea, or the first pass at solving a problem that solution is almost never the right one. There is workshopping to be done, and other people to consult and the biggest lesson is that perfection doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean you can't or you should strive for it.
The concept of achieving “perfection” and an idea or art piece or design being “ready” is a controversial one in this field. Our ideas are never finished or ready; we are always making improvements. And while this notion that your ideas are never ready is good for pushing to improve and reinvent, on the flip side we have to decide when enough is enough and when we should “call it done.” It is a difficult process but one every artist, designer, or maker has to go through. I am of the belief that ideas do come to you at a certain time, and you must develop the idea and work towards something better than what you started with. I used to struggle with coming up with a solid base idea and thought that this meant that I was not creative or not meant for this field, however I’ve learned now that I just need to make tweaks until I am comfortable with it.
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