a creative digestion flow map: how ideas are born

 

some months ago, I wrote a post called the lifecycle of a creative project, breaking down creative projects into 3 phases: seeds, growing, and ripe. six years ago (at the very beginning of everything), I wrote how my creative metabolism works, reflecting on my own ideal creative rhythm: fast and furious, like a storm; dense and heavy, and otherwise prone to creative constipation / the feeling of a traffic jam in my head.

this post is an evolved and synthesized version of those two frameworks.

here’s how it works.

ideas: the promising possibilities

there is energy and excitement around a seed. sometimes it comes as a small whisper at the back of your head, a “what if?”, and other times, it falls hard from the sky, like a twelve layer cake into your lap, and it seems almost fully formed, and ready to be born. different ideas have different rates of sprouting and growth — just as real plants do.

the danger with new ideas is twofold.

  1. it’s easy to get paralyzed and intimidated by an idea, and never do it, until it dies into the graveyard of unborn ideas.

  2. it’s easy to get distracted by every single creative impulse, especially the ones that feel particularly sexy, or promising, or shiny — even if it’s not serving your larger visions and priorities.

be careful not to do this. let the seed ferment, sprout, and grow roots in you, and enjoy this process of creative incubation, instead of feeling pressured to chase or plant every one of them — you’ll easily tire yourself out, and scatter your energy.

(or, you CAN chase every one of them blindly, for a small period of time, and that, too, is a practice of allowing yourself to luxuriate in your creative impulses).

active: what’s I’m focused on now

I’ve found, in my last year of rebirthing from being a moody overwhelmed creative, that having a distinction of what’s truly “active” — versus what we deliberately let go of, for later — is crucial to staying focused.

what’s active for me is whatever I approach as a target, a mini-sprint: I set a tight deadline for myself, and complete it in the next 1-3 days (again, this is my own metabolism, your timing might be different).

the distinction between an idea vs. what’s active is absolutely crucial — because it allows me to redirect my focus to the act of materialization, and to dive deep into actually doing the work, rather than going in circles of possibility and planning.

then, nested within the active bubble, I have a “NOW” — as in, literally what I’m doing in this present moment. I used to draw this into a circle of now.

ongoing: the repeating rituals

“Ongoing” are the projects that repeat itself with some predictable rhythm. for me, this includes everything in my internet as creative practice, and introvert marketing rituals:

  • Writing or creating anything for my website (world-building)

  • Writing and sending newsletters

  • Podcasts, community-building work.

  • Working on my website itself

  • Emails and admin

backlog: what’s waiting to be born

the backlog is either an incubation lab for ideas that have fermented and aged for a while (and feel ripe, ready for the birthing process) — or, ideas that have gone bad / become overripe / feels stale, and died — in which case, they need to be composted and released.

I used to feel a LOT of mental heaviness from the backlog. I’d have so many ideas that I never manifested, so many newsletters I’d never send, that the backlog became a place of terrible guilt and anxiety. (I write about it here).

In recent months, I’ve allowed myself permission to

  1. Be unattached, and ready to go of backlog projects that no longer feel alive

  2. Trust that the truly essential projects will stay there, insisting to be born.

  3. Attempt resuscitation, but don’t force it.

  4. Give the backlog some spaciousness — they are a liminal space, neither alive and new, nor totally dead.

it helps, then, to let go, and to think of creative projects as having a life of their own. the ones that REALLY are calling to be birthed — will not leave you alone.

released / composted: death of the project

I actually think that the death of a project is something we don’t celebrate enough. by death I mean completion, release, surrender — that too, is a kind of death — and I’d say that the only way it can TRULY be complete is when it’s shared with the world as a part of your digital world-building; given back to the universal consciousness from which it came. therefore, it helps not to be too attached to the ownership of any one creative idea, even if it feels so vulnerably personal. afterall, the personal is the universal

without this cycle of death/release, the new ideas don’t flow. I’ve definitely found this to be true. the question I’d ask myself — whenever I’m sensing the traffic-jam clogged feeling — is: what project is ready to be completed, and let go of, so that new ideas can have life?

as for the compost: there’s something beautiful about decay and regeneration of half-formed things of the psyche, because what that means is that the idea, in its previous form, wasn’t ready to be born. (if it were, it would stay in the backlog, clinging on for dear life. and the distinction between compost/backlog is also fluid and translucent).

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some practical suggestions

so, how to use this diagram/framework? I’d suggest drawing a version of the flow map on your own notebook, and sensing into which of your projects goes where. see what insights come up for you.

or, write down a list of ALL of your projects, and see how they fit into these phases. perhaps your flow looks a bit different.

 
creative practiceKening Zhucreative process, unblocking, paralysis