Read time: 4 minutes
#84 – 01 Dec 2023
Welcome!
Do you make time for alone time?
It’s hard, right?
You’re drowning in family, personal and work commitments.
And you’re bombarded by that phone in your pocket — email, news, social media, and texts.
You feel full to the brim.
“How could I possibly squeeze in alone time?” you wonder.
Well, let me tell you one of my biggest insights in recent years:
Solitude is not a luxury. It’s essential.
Now, you’re probably wondering:
Why?
Aren’t we in a loneliness epidemic?
Yes. People spend more time online, sacrificing their mental wellbeing by ignoring human connection.
I’m not talking about going all monk mode and dropping off the face of the earth into your little hermit shell.
But you need some space to preserve your mental wellbeing and perform at your best.
Boundaries
That’s a word we hear a lot these days.
I bet you feel overwhelmed and out of control when those boundaries don’t exist.
It’s stressful, right?
I wrote in a previous letter about feeling “besieged”:
You feel like you’re surrounded with no way out.
You don’t want to end up there.
But in today’s discussion on solitude, I want to connect it with creativity and performance in your work.
Put simply:
You won’t have any good ideas if you don’t make space to think.
Cause in that space is where you make the connections that lead to breakthroughs:
Steve [Jobs] said any new idea is nothing more than a new combination of old elements.
He said the ability to make those new combinations depends on our ability to see relationships.
That’s what makes some people more creative.
They are better at spotting those connections, better at recognizing possible relationships.
Dave Trott
I was listening to a conversation with Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar, those legendary animated storytellers.
Ed had artistic roots but settled as a physics major at his university. He ended up pioneering the breakthrough technology that makes Pixar movies so remarkable.
But he mentioned how people don’t typically think of engineers as “creative”.
People mistakenly think only of traditional “artists” as creative. You know, people who paint and draw, etc.
But Ed highlighted how this is misleading.
Do you know what artists do exceptionally well?
See.
They learned how to see.
They observe.
They pay attention to reality in a way that uncovers insights and stories.
That is the superpower behind their work.
But you know who else sees and observes?
Entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, doctors, lawyers etc.
It’s not just artists.
And that’s how creativity enters any field.
You don’t have to be an “artist”.
But Ed and the engineers at Pixar do such brilliant work that they are considered “artists”.
Silence and solitude
After all the “seeing”, you need to process that seeing.
You need space for the connecting of dots.
And that is where silence and solitude come in.
Humans aren’t built for overstimulation.
Many modern world improvements hamstring our natural powers if we aren’t mindful. You want technology to be helping, not hindering your progress.
Take email for example. It has unlocked so much progress and opportunity. But the person glued to their inbox, constantly checking, is failing at life.
You don’t want to be that person.
It’s exhausting.
If you want to stand out from the crowd and dominate your field, start by prioritising some quiet space, without distractions.
Artists know that silence is necessary for the creative process to flourish.
It anchors them in their work and allows them to face their fears and recognise their feelings.
The more artists are in a quiet place, the more they know themselves, and the better they can tangibly express their individuality and their unique ideas.
Maria Brito
And it’s no different for you in your work. Even though you don’t see yourself as an artist, you can see the benefits.
You crave it.
I’m seeing a trend in the culture. People are waking up to this. Thanks to people like Cal Newport, who’s impacting change with his work around digital minimalism to prioritise deep and meaningful work.
This week, a post from Zach Pogrob caught my attention on Instagram:
If you’re a creative, you need alone time. Much more than most.
If you pretend you don’t, it will eat you alive from the inside out.
Solitude is oxygen for the obsessed.
Zach Pogrob
Hits hard, doesn’t it?
The line “If you pretend you don’t, it will eat you alive from the inside out” gets me.
I’ve felt that many times. It’s painful.
That’s why you can’t skimp on your alone time.
Set yourself up for success.
Action steps
- Look at your calendar.
- Block off a daily time for silence and solitude.
- Remember, this means no digital devices!
- Start small (e.g. 5 minutes) and work up over the next month.
My goal is 1 hour daily. It’s precious.
You will come to appreciate that space.
You will crave it.
Your creativity will flourish.
Quality ideas will incubate before they explode out of your brain.
Answers will rise out of the silence to those deep niggling problems you’ve felt in your soul but never could solve.
And best of all, you will find a sense of calm that you didn’t know you were missing.
Start today!
Cheers,
Matt
P.S.
Last call for my Creativity workshop before the price rises on Monday:
Systems for Creativity: Unleash your creative intelligence
I’ll be expanding on more ideas like today’s topic to help you flourish as a creative superpower in your work.
