Creativity > Edition 2 - Get away from the screen

Hi and welcome to Day 2 of the Cultivated Creativity pop-up newsletter - 31 days of ideas about creativity and then it's gone!

Very few of my best ideas happen when I’m looking at a screen. There's something constraining about a screen - and not in a good way. Constraints are good for creativity but the lack of tactile freedom could be why screens offer very little in the way of generating ideas (at least for me).

There are boundaries on a screen and very few software companies provide a way to break out and free write, free draw or free create. Some tools are coming close (Mural is pretty good) but there are still constraints with inputs, delays in adding content. A simple Yellow Legal Pad or cheap notebook already allows that freedom, speed and accessibility for many.

Being in front of a screen also provides distractions. The quiet calling of the Internet. The temptations to waste more time on social media. The quote that you feel compelled to look up. The emails you know are sitting in your inbox. You can block all of this (and that's great) but I believe simply closing your computer down and getting back to something more analogue is more fruitful in the long run.

Tech and screens are great when bringing something to life, but I find they hinder the thinking and creative ideation. They hinder the exploration of an idea. They excel at storing outcomes, digitising ideas for reference and for bringing many of my creative projects to fruition (like this newsletter). But I can't think clearly with a screen.

Nature feeds creativity. If you want to have ideas and be inspired and to be calm in your mind and spirit - then seek out nature.

A walk in the woods. Sitting in the garden. A picnic in a field. Nature inspires and calms. And if you study nature and truly study what you see, you'll find ideas everywhere for your business, your life, your art and your creative pursuits.

I often say that if more business owners studied biology and the natural world they'd know how to look at their businesses in the right way. After all, organisations are organic - and the more we know about how the natural world works - the more we can understand why many management and leadership initiatives fail.

Another powerful reason I like to avoid screens and digital tools when creating something of value, is you often cannot see what you chose to cross out (or delete). When I work through an idea on paper, I see the history. The scribbles, the lines, the things I crossed out. I can see the context and the flow and the arrangement and the reasoning. I can see the whole process - and when I can see that, I can understand more about the project and the work.

It's why, when I run creative thinking sessions with clients, I get them to keep all of their ideas - every single one. I want them to see the history of their thinking, the ideas they said no to - the logic behind their creative pursuits. It's powerful for them to see the whole and to see what they are saying no to.

A slightly rambling second edition to explain why stepping away from the screen is so important. In the next 29 editions we'll jump into concrete examples and ideas,

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