Wide creativity vs. narrow creativity
The term “creative productivity” seems like an oxymoron. What we know about creativity is at odds with what we know about productivity.
We know great insights come more readily when we’re in a relaxed state, with wide open spaces and lots of activity around us to inspire. We have our best ideas in the shower, while on a hike, or while sitting in a busy European town square.
Yet we can’t shower our way to writing a great novel. We have to actually sit down and produce the work. We need discipline and we can’t be distracted.
To balance creativity with productivity, I find it helpful to think of my creative work in terms of “wide” creativity, and “narrow” creativity.
When you’re practicing wide creativity, you’re looking for the Big Idea. When you’re practicing narrow creativity, you’re making the creative product.
Wide creativity calls for everything we know about creativity. Great insights are the result of combinations of seemingly unrelated concepts, so whatever we can do to allow the most disparate concepts in our minds to mix will help lead to those insights.
As the name implies, wide creativity calls for everything to be wide: Wide open spaces, wide thinking (or open-mindedness), wide attention (such as a busy cafe).
The more wide our thinking, and the more our environment misdirects our thinking, the better the chances unrelated concepts collide to produce great insights.
When I lived in Chicago, I would often work on the 95th floor of the Hancock Tower for my wide creativity sessions. I could see the whole city, and it helped me think big.
Narrow creativity calls for some of what we know about creativity to be mixed with most of what we know about productivity.
Producing work of any kind takes discipline and focus. Yet discipline and focus are antithetical to creativity.
My personal solution is to practice narrow creativity in an environment that is conducive to discipline and focus, yet with a mind state that is conducive to creativity.
So, I write first thing in the morning, while I’m still groggy, for open-minded thinking. Yet I write facing a blank wall, with earplugs in my ears, to stay focused and disciplined enough to produce work.
My mind state is wide, yet my environment is narrow. When I first applied this way of working, my creative productivity quickly quadrupled.
I like to think of wide creativity sessions as collecting raw materials, and narrow creativity sessions as doing the construction. My wide creativity sessions inform my narrow creativity sessions, and vice-versa.
If I’m working on a book, I’ll print out a draft, go to an outdoor cafe, and read the draft, while scribbling notes in the margins. I’m practicing wide creativity.
The next morning, when I sit down to write, elements from my wide creativity session reveal themselves in my writing. I don’t review my notes, but the ideas I exercise in my wide creativity sessions later appear as polished prose in my narrow creativity sessions.
The concepts of wide creativity and narrow creativity are consistent with the “four stages” of creativity:
- Preparation: Collecting information about the creative problem.
- Incubation: Allowing connections to be made in your mind while you’re not actively thinking about the problem.
- Illumination: The moment of insight—the “aha!” moment.
- Verification: Evaluating the creative solution to confirm it’s a good one.
Think of wide creativity sessions as Preparation, with some hope of Illumination. Narrow creativity sessions involve rolling the dice—or rather getting dealt another hand—toward Illumination, with some on-the-fly Verification built in.
Note that you can travel through these four stages so fast that you don’t even notice. That’s narrow creativity. Or, you can spend days, months, or even years in one stage. That’s wide creativity.
Thus, it’s important to recognize that wide creativity can take a very long time. For example, in his book On Writing Stephen King recommends hiding the first draft of your novel in a drawer for six weeks. Only then should you take it out and review it. That’s six solid weeks of Incubation. That is wide creativity, indeed.
To design your optimal wide and narrow creativity sessions, mix and match factors to see what works best for you. Such factors include:
- Alertness: Alert or groggy.
- Energy: High or low.
- Environment: Busy or peaceful.
- Space: Open or closed.
For my narrow creativity sessions, I’m groggy, with high energy, in a peaceful environment, and a closed space. I’m facing a blank wall first thing in the morning.
Ideally, you’ll know the right balance of factors for alternating wide and narrow creativity sessions. You may discover other factors that affect your ability to do wide vs. narrow creative thinking.
You can also mix and match the factors that make up your wide and narrow creativity sessions, to boost your wide or narrow creativity, based upon what stage you’re in on a creative project.
For example, if I’m in between projects and looking for a Big Idea, I’ll purposefully avoid narrow creativity in the hopes of scrambling up my brain and eliciting new insights.
I’ll go to a cafe in the mornings, while I’m still groggy. It’s uncomfortable, and even feels unproductive at first, but if I string together a week of such sessions, I’m often surprised what comes out in my next narrow creativity session.
Additionally, if I’m in heavy production mode for a book, I’ll use busy and open environments to counter my alert state and get an extra narrow creativity session out of my day. I’ll go to a cafe in the afternoon to edit my morning’s writing, which was purposefully more wide, since I knew I’d get a more-focused opportunity to revise it.
To make it as a creator, you can’t just have great ideas. You need to make them a reality. By thinking of creativity in terms of wide and narrow creative thinking, you can have the best of both worlds.
Want to 4x your creative productivity? Get your free toolkit »
