Debate: Preparation and Creative Work
Some of us live by the motto, Be Prepared. Others think we should do more preparation, while some find the idea stifling or excessive.
A client shared her mother’s advice: If you’re always ready, you never have to get ready. I find that idea appealing, as did my client, who is a particularly together person and leader.
What about you? Is preparedness part of your personal operating system? If so, what’s your experience of preparation and doing creative work? Does preparedness have a role in creativity?
Let’s start with some trouble
Preparation can be a tempting distraction or a slippery slope away from creative production.
Do you love gathering and perfecting your supplies or environment?
Is research a bottomless pit of fascination that doesn’t turn into anything creative from you?
Does everything else need to be taken care of or off your plate before you can turn to creative work?
Do you need to be ready to do creative work—the right time, place, conditions, and level of inspiration, motivation or support all lining up as you’re sure it before you can get some work done?
Do you need permission, affirmation, or assurance—consciously or not—before committing to creative work?
In every case, preparation, not just perfection, can be the enemy of work, of good, of done, of any amount of creative courage or focus.
Sometimes the exact right amount of preparation is the minimum number of steps or keystrokes between not being in our creative work and being right there in the project. Whatever action is required to show up, ready or not, is all the preparation we need.
Show up for the muse, or you’ll never connect. Butt in seat. Leader with her team. Experimenter in the lab, inventor in the workshop, musician at his instrument. Just being there is often most of the job.
Now for the flip side
While lack of preparation is a poor and popular excuse for lack of creative engagement, it’s also true that preparation matters.
Is your creative work or quality of experience impacted by poor sleep or other lifestyle factors you have some control over? There’s a preparation opportunity, in addition to showing up as you are for the work.
Are you often all work and no play? While it’s true that we need to show up to the work and meet the muse there, creative inspiration and breakthrough often comes when we are well away from the work. Showing up where your muse likes to come out to play, or sneak up and whisper—in dreams, in play, connecting with others, being inspired and stimulated by ideas and situations unrelated to our creative work—is another form of preparation we can easily miss out on.
Would your creative project benefit substantially from a better choice of tool, the advice of an expert, an environmental upgrade, or more research or experimentation before making key decisions? More preparation is our friend, as long as we remain the boss of our project and are willing to notice and say when enough is enough and it’s time to move along.
Check-in
What kind of getting-ready is your creative work asking for now?
How much more showing-up-anyway could you do and be glad you did?