Shallow Work Is Necessary for Creativity
I used to believe that the very act of writing is what defines me as a creative. But I’m starting to understand that the work starts long before my fingers hit the keys. In a previous edition of my newsletter, I wrote:
“I’ve always been curious how exactly people ‘figure things out’ when there are no playbooks, no best practices, no models to follow. The universal method I’ve unearthed is action & reflection. The Romans called this, via activa — the way of action — and via contemplativa — the way of reflection.”
As creatives, we think that creativity — the actual work itself — is the “action”. But the truth is the opposite. Living the rest of our lives — the routine, the wearisome, the exciting — is the action that provides the necessary material to fuel sessions of creative work. Creativity is merely a reflection upon a life of action.
In his essay on creativity, writer and illustrator Lawrence Yeo writes, “The first word you write is a distillation of the knowledge you’ve accumulated over time.” The corollary to this is that, if you want to consistently produce valuable creative work, you have to regularly and intentionally gain knowledge and experience life.
Creatives dislike doing administrative tasks. Cal Newport lumps non-cognitively demanding tasks into the dreaded “shallow work” bucket. He encourages us to time block our schedules to spend as little time there as possible.
But aside from the unavoidable fact that we need our licenses renewed, our insurance filed, and our groceries purchased, this insight into creativity opens up a reason for us to embrace the boring bits of life: that paying attention to these life tasks gives us the combustible matter to burn when we get down to business.
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