#144: Scheduling Time To Explore
This newsletter is one day late. I wrote three versions, but none felt right. So, I pushed the computer aside and caught up with some reading.
As I read, I couldn't help but wonder why my writing was stagnant. I haven't posted anything on Medium in weeks and have been inconsistent with LinkedIn after taking February off. I feel empty and need to fill my creative well.
Then, I remembered the concept of exploring and exploiting that I wrote about earlier. As creators, we are either in exploring mode (reading, listening, learning, growing) or exploiting mode (writing articles and books, teaching courses, creating products). We usually have systems for exploiting, but not for exploring.
I need to schedule time for exploration like my friend
of A.M. Sketching. Each morning she sits with her sketchbook and a cup of tea and sketches. Nothing in particular, whatever fancies her at the moment. Each morning she sits with her cup of coffee and sketchbook and draws. And with her sketches, she usually has very insightful comments.Austin Kleon also has a daily exploration process of writing and drawing in his notebook. Then he publishes them. I need to incorporate sketching and daily publishing into my routine. Both are forms of exploration with built-in accountability.
Sketching is crucial for creativity. It keeps your hand moving and hence engages your creative brain. That’s why Lynda Barry insists on “keep moving your hand.”
We focus too much on what we create rather than what we think through the act of creating. Journaling for twenty years, I still explore the same ideas. It takes time for things to come to fruition.
What we need is a system for collecting things and a system for going back through them. My website is a repository for my published work (exploitation). And my Knowledge Management System is a repository for my exploratory work.
For people who are thinking of becoming writers, it’s a rough road. Learning to write is a process that goes on throughout your lifespan. Exploration is a very important part of your daily schedule. The ratio of exploration to exploitation needs to be at least one-to-one. If not two to one. You need to do an insane amount of reading to get good ideas to percolate in your head. Stephen King writes for three hours in the mornings then he reads for the whole afternoon. His famous quote is, “If you don’t have time to read you don’t have time to write.”
There is a lot of garbage out there, the part of a creative person’s job is to become a creative refinery. When you are exploring you are making connections, fusing ideas, refining, and explaining. So I think part of our job is to make sense of all that we consume and pull out the good stuff. Dolly Parton said, “Figure out who you are and do it on purpose.”
Writing is tough, very tough. You can’t sustain it for a long time if you are not having fun. And exploring is fun. One way to bring fun back into your writing is to schedule time for exploration. Preferably every day.
That’s all from me this week.
Great reminder! I exploit much more than I explore , and in an effort to tip the scales, I just decided to scale back how much I publish. The saying that living life is the best fuel for creative work is so true !! I have no idea how some creators publish every single day- on multiple platforms. I tried and it leaves me so empty.
I have reading time scheduled each day. Not as much as Stephen King (although I'd love to), but I read every night, most often in my fiction genre (historical mystery). That way I bookend my day with two things I love, the morning for writing and the evening for reading. But I find I also need "imagining" time as well, to really make my fiction work.