Re: Experimentation & Process

Good post to start us off, Jen.

I can relate to your struggles with process, although my own are just a tad different.

The exhilaration I get from the design process is almost always in the idea stage. I find that once I have a good idea, more (and better) ideas are sure to follow. I think I have learned to be diligent and patient in this stage of the process, and I really enjoy laboring and participating in the birth of the idea that becomes the solution—“The One”.

Here comes the challenge, which is twofold:

1. After I birth this beautiful, bouncing idea, I am exhausted. I have little, if any, motivation or energy to get started on the actual follow-through—raising the little bastard, if you will—so instead I take a nap.
   
   I could fill libraries with monstrous books full of ideas that I never acted on.
   
   The ideas that I’ve sent to this purgatory (worse than death, I’d say) are good, I think. But, I have a hunch that I’m losing out on a key part of the process. As with the idea stage, where one appears and many more follow, I suspect that once I started acting on a solution, that, too, would continue to evolve and grow into its best version.
   
   The ideas I do end up acting on—for class or work, because I “have to”*—are usually stunted due a constrained timeline. I simply don’t have (or I don’t give myself) the time that the project really needs.


2. Once I arrive at an idea, it often requires expertise that extends far beyond my own. (This is why my dream job, at the moment, is more in the creative direction realm: I come up with ideas surrounded by a team of incredibly talented people, who actually have the know-how and chutzpah to get them done.)

Before I continue, let me first say that being enrolled in this program is helping me refine my process and correct some of these problems. I’m miles from where I used to be, which is encouraging.

But, since my problem is twofold, I’ll offer a twofold solution, which was presented to me in a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.

What are we to learn from this?

1. It’s not the idea that comes first, according to Einstein anyway, so I need to stop patting myself on the back for fleeting thoughts I deem to be “good ideas”.

Work first. Work, work, work, work, work, and harder work. Then, maybe, an idea. 

1. I mentioned earlier that I only see ideas to completion when I “have to”. After I wrote that, I felt deeply troubled, and I realized what a big part of the problem is: most of the time, I only do what I “have to”, a.k.a. , stuff I’m getting evaluated on.

There’s a word in Einstein’s quote that stuck with me: obsession. 

I should be obsessed with my ideas.

Not in the sense that I become enamored with them, and then can’t see past them to what could be better solutions. You touched on that, Jen.  

Rather, I should be so obsessed with my ideas that I HAVE TO GET THEM DONE, or else I will go crazy(ier).

This is where it comes full circle: when you work so hard to get to an idea, when you really invest in your creativity, you’ll naturally become obsessed with seeing it to fruition.

If I could have maybe one or two of those in my life, I’d be happy.

*This phrase is going to come up later, and it’s very important. The meaning behind it is quite possibly the entire theme of this post. Please keep that in mind and, if you feel it necessary, go back, read it again, and let the phrase marinate for a few moments.