My system for being creative is slightly easier to follow:
1. Do cool things
2. Show them to people
And that's pretty much it.
However, I do keep a notebook in my pocket at all times to jot down interesting ideas, not so much because I'd ever look at it again, but because it makes me think about it a little bit longer.
My value evaluation system is similarly silly - if I still remember the idea a week from now, two weeks from now ... whatever. If I have an idea consistently for a long period of time, then there's probably something there. The next step is to make it and see if anyone else thinks there's something there.
Or at least to tell people and ask them if they think there's something there.
> if I still remember the idea a week from now, two weeks from now ... whatever. If I have an idea consistently for a long period of time, then there's probably something there.
Hmm, I think you're losing out a lot by not making an honest effort to work on your ideas.
Something insignificant today could be important ten years from now, that's why photographers often have such huuuuuge collections of photos.
I'd also venture a guess that sometimes your work is repetitive. If you start recording what you did when then you can notice this and 1. stop repeating yourself 2. start re-using the work that really does need to be repeated
But the biggest reason to keep a scrapbook is that quite often the best ideas work like this for me: I have an idea today, two months down the line I get something in my mind and I try to compare it to things already in my scrapbook; turns out it's that idea from two months ago. Then, a year or so down the line I'll revisit it, and come up with a tiny detail that makes the thing complete and ten times better. Ideas are like puzzles, and sometimes you get a new piece every ten years. By not keeping a scrapbook I deprived myself of the ability to solve the puzzles of my life. It was like some Kafkan nightmare where I ran around in circles with no apparent purpose and nothing to show for all my effort.
My system for being creative is slightly easier to follow:
1. Do cool things
2. Show them to people
And that's pretty much it.
However, I do keep a notebook in my pocket at all times to jot down interesting ideas, not so much because I'd ever look at it again, but because it makes me think about it a little bit longer.
My value evaluation system is similarly silly - if I still remember the idea a week from now, two weeks from now ... whatever. If I have an idea consistently for a long period of time, then there's probably something there. The next step is to make it and see if anyone else thinks there's something there.
Or at least to tell people and ask them if they think there's something there.