What is the cost of taking something out of your head?

Taking something out of your head has a cost — it forces all possibilities to collapse into one thing so that it can be conveyed to others. In most cases, being clear is not a bad thing: having a logical sequence of arguments leading one into another is what leads to great breakthroughs.

But think of the most exceptional professionals you’ve worked with: how often do they make sense from the get go? When you look to great thinkers, there is an incredible depth to their thinking and reasoning behind the work that they made in the very thinking they've made.

It seems almost as if they have an intuitive, holistic and situational understanding of their own work process and tasks. When you look at something like that its hard to conceive the mental process that they went through — often it really is irrational. Breakthroughs seem to have an almost quantum-like quality to them.

The most creative, interesting and authentic breakthroughs often come from one person spending too much time on something that they probably shouldn't have to a point that it makes sense for no-one other than themselves. Great work comes from after this barrier, where intuition, the whole and the situation speaks to one another inside someone’s head and off into the work.

Formatting and structuring one's work is different from the work itself. Its taxing and has a cost — especially in creative and knowledge fields. When you take something out of your head it needs to make sense to you and to others — you need to spend time explaining your process, context, decision, expectations and whatever nonsense you're expected to.

The cost of taking something out of your head is spending energy getting rid of all these possibilities