Investing in Creativity
Investing in creativity is incremental effort and cumulative reward.
Investing in creativity is incremental effort and cumulative reward.
I realized this in two ways this year.
1 — More Input > More Output
I made a resolution as 2023 closed out to make more art. Rather than thinking of “more” as a greater number of works of art, I instead thought of it as more time making art. This has already had an enormous impact.
On the one hand, I have produced fewer “finished pieces” than in previous years. On the other, I have filled more visual journals than in any other year of my life. This is because I’m filling small gaps in time by working in them, rather than trying to carve out larger spans of time “in the studio.”
The reward: my craft is sharper, my ideas are better, my mind is healthier.
2 — Invest in Your Future Self
I look up at the shelf in my office and can see twenty-five years of visual journals. It suddenly feels like a lot.
I have always thought of keeping a journal as making an investment in your future self. When you keep them freely, actively, and 100% sincerely, they will teach you things about yourself and the world around you for as long as you look back on them. They are a time capsule of your mind, for you, by you.
An incremental effort in freeing your mind produces a cumulative reward in insight.
Examples
These are a few spreads from a couple of weeks ago.
You can also view more by filtering my archive by Visual Journal.
…and, more importantly, you can do the same for yourself anywhere, anytime, starting right now. I am nearly certain you have a mostly-empty notebook lying around somewhere :)
Written by Christopher Butler on
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