How We Think as We Work and How We Find Our Muses - Harvard Busines Review

I'm in Word. I write a sentence. I revise the second half. I delete it all. I try to recall the original. I think I've got it. I stare at the phrase "brought home to me." It starts to look funny. I google it.

Minutes, sometimes hours, pass in this state of indecision. It's not how I'd like to work, but too often it is how I work. My only saving grace is that eventually my train of thought does find its focus, usually with nary a moment to spare. If I must make a 5:00 pm deadline, clarity shows up promptly at 4:47.

It seems that as much as deadlines push me to action, the mounting pressure to make them sparks creativity.

In a talk given for TEDIndia, Shekhar Kapur describes how he similarly depends on stress as his muse. A big difference, though, is that he's a lot more efficient in his approach. Rather than passively wait to reach an "inspiring" level of anxiety, he deliberately puts himself into a state of panic.

He shows up on set, rips up his script, and tells himself he's not going to do what he planned. He even listens to frantic music. By allowing himself to go into chaos, he gets rid of his mind and harnesses the power of not knowing. What he hopes to achieve from this method is honesty: "The truth of it all comes on the moment organically." And it's these moments that resonate with audiences.

Christoph Niemann, an illustrator whose work regularly appears in the New Yorker, Wired, and the New York Times, also plays with deadlines to enhance his creativity. As told in an interview on the 99% website, he allows himself no more than 4 hours of "hardcore creative thinking" each day. He realized there is only a given amount of creative time he can squeeze out of himself, and if he tries to extend that, he either ends up sacrificing quality or paying a price the next day.

Another way Niemann uses short deadlines is to prevent projects from becoming boring or overwrought. Regarding this process, he says, "I find it really amazing how close it is to sports . . . Going over a paragraph, going over and over and over it — at some point it starts hurting the same way it does when you go running."

For my next project, I think I'll try a combination of Kapur and Niemann's approaches. I question my ability to incite a panic within myself — I'm not very intimidating — but I do think I could set off a nice little frenzy with some purposeful procrastination. Real stress plus a real time limit: What could possibly go wrong?