2014: Twelve Habits of Creativity

Previously, I wrote about my Outreach Habit, how I pushed through difficulty, and how it changed who I am. It garnered enough interest for a follow-up post. And indeed, this year I created a spin-off of the Outreach Habit: career workshops where grad students and post-docs made concrete progress on their own careers, available here and described by a participant here. 

And the Outreach Habit was just Phase One.

Creativity is like any other skill. It can be deliberately practiced and improved. Importantly, one can’t just read about how to be creative and then be creative. People sometimes want tips and tricks (i.e. shortcuts and magic bullets), but you actually have to actually implement creative techniques yourself, figure out what works for you, and make it a habit to think creatively. The only way to build a habit is through concrete action - doing it everyday.

Creativity doesn’t “just happen.” It’s not spontaneous (though it can feel like it in the moment). It’s not waiting around to be inspired. And it's certainly not out of your control (though it is partly out of your conscious control).

With this in mind, I dedicated each month of 2014 to a different Habit of Creativity.

Creativity is simply this: Taking things that already exist and connecting them in new ways. This doesn’t just happen by itself. To do this, five basic ingredients need to be cultivated:

1) Raw material. Obviously, you can’t connect things you don’t know exist. This is why I did my 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge in 2013- to maximize exposure to ideas.

2) Actively engaging with ideas. You can’t expect creativity to "just happen.” There are specific ways to wrestle with ideas.

3) Relationships. I personally like to be by myself and think, but adopting other people’s viewpoints is the fastest way to look at the same old boring thing in a different light.

4) A creative environment. Daily routines, schedules, work space, etc all need to be tinkered with. This will be different for different people, but trial and error is always required.

5) Deliberate skill acquisition. Skills create opportunities to access and cultivate the four ingredients above.

Each Habit of Creativity is targeted at one of the above ingredients.

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Monthly Habits of Creativity 

Just like the Outreach Habit, I strived to practice a Habit of Creativity every single day for 30-50 days, using the Mini-Habits method. When I fell off, I got back on as quickly as I could.

These targeted my specific weaknesses. If you want to develop your own Habits of Creativity, you can try mine out, but don’t adopt them wholesale. Instead, be creative...

I’m not going to explain these in detail. Instead, I’ve included links to what inspired the habit.

My 2014 Habits of Creativity:

•    January: Outreach

•    February: Read scientific papers daily

•    March: Learn to draw... using Inkscape vector graphics. Required myself to to post one new drawing everyday on Facebook. Also used this to generate all the figures for my 1-hour presentation on my thesis work. 

•    April: Empathy

•    May: Write down 10 ideas

•    June: Journal

•    July: Active recall

•    August: Learn programming in R (continued until November)

•    September: Deep work rituals

•    October: Mind mapping 

•    November: Morning ritual to promote clarity of thought and stay focused on my most important work. Includes journaling, exercise, and reading

•    December: Evening ritual dedicated to building relationships

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Interested or Skeptical?

Below are some common responses I got to my Outreach Habit, likely relevant to rest of my habits.

A common response: "Wow, that sounds like it took a lot of time. I wish I had that kind of time."

“I don’t have time” is a bullshit excuse. You just need the right plan. The Outreach Habit took 10 minutes per day.

Another common response: “Wow, you were really motivated to do that. How did you inspire yourself everyday?”

“I’m not feeling motivated” is a crutch. You don’t need inspiration to take action. Most days I did not feel motivated. Action leads to motivation, not the other way around.

Another common response: “You’re so extroverted! I wish I could do that” or… “That sounds like faking it and not being yourself..."

“I’m not that type of person” is irrelevant. You can become that type of person. I’m still an introvert, by the way. Being around others is exhausting. But that doesn’t mean I can’t reach out to others.

The Outreach Habit: 50 consecutive days of doing something I'm bad at

The Goal

Every single day for the first 50 days of 2014, I forced myself to do something outside my comfort zone. And that's how I ended up having drinks with the vice president of a powerful company.

~The Outreach Habit: Everyday, I must make contact with one person that I otherwise would not have.~

Completion rate: 100%, tracked on Lift.

This usually entailed cold e-mails to people I don’t know. I wrote to the blogger Philip Guo telling him how much his article on grant writing helped me write my predoctoral fellowship, and he got back to me immediately and posted my message on his blog. I wrote to a graduate school dean proposing a collaboration- we start Monday. I got the new President of the University of Michigan to agree to speak to the MD/PhD program within 24 hours of the announcement of his selection by the Board of Regents. I also contacted dozens of alumni and other professionals to organize a series of career panels.

The Outreach Habit also included going up to a speaker after a talk. At a conference, this led to an e-mail exchange with a professor comparing data to assess the potential for a collaboration.

I suppose you could call this the Networking Habit, but I also want to get better at keeping in touch with old friends. Therefore, I wrote up a New Year's update blurb complete with photos and sent them to my friends. Many reciprocated. On really busy days, sending a quickly-modified blurb to another friend I hadn’t seen in years was a good, easy default.
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Difficult Skills = Worthwhile Skills

Why did I choose this habit?

Answer: because it’s hard. Really hard.

Or at least it's hard for me.

First, I just spent the last year maximizing my personal productivity, cultivating my ability to focus, and cutting out distractions. I wanted to focus on my science and my work. With that mindset, other people are distractions.

Second, when I started out, I had no idea how to make these meaningful, productive exchanges. The problem was that I was not used to putting myself in others’ shoes. If I was this person, why would I want to engage with this person who just sent me a random e-mail?

Solution? I tried to make these exchanges meaningful, not worrying about how incompetent I was. Once I made the decision to reach out to a particular person, I forced myself to come up with more and more reasons to make contact. I researched the person online if I didn’t know them. I thought about my own goals and what reasons they would have for wanting to help me out. I thought about each unique person and crafted an equally unique connection. With this information in hand, I could craft a meaningful (yet short) e-mail with a meaningful outcome.

But I didn’t give up just because I sucked. I wrote e-mails that were terrible and got no reply. I’m pretty sure I offended some people. I made some embarassing mistakes during public speaking events that resulted from this outreach habit. But that is part of the process. I only stuck with it because I knew that failure is actually just feedback to help me improve. This is the “get better” mindset- all that matters is that I improve. When I hit an obstacle, that’s life asking me, “are you sure you want to change?"
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Habits Change Who You Are

A week ago, I wanted to see if I truly made Outreach into a habit. So I ended this habit plan and archived the goal on Lift. 

What happened? I began seeing outreach opportunities everywhere.

I heard that the vice president of a major company was coming to the university to give a talk on careers, and I immediately pulled up her e-mail address on LinkedIn and sent her a cold e-mail asking to meet for coffee. Within 1 hour of realizing she existed, I was on her schedule. We ended up having drinks for 3 hours and bonded over intellectual discussions and hilarious personal stories.

I now encounter very little inertia when e-mailing a random big-shot and ask for a coffee meeting. They almost always say yes. I’m meeting with a Principal at Boston Consulting Group this evening- I only e-mailed him yesterday.

Given that I used to suffer from social anxiety, it’s still a little hard to believe how comfortable I’ve become at making rapid and effective connections with complete strangers. How easy it is reach out to people who I’ve been feuding with or neglecting. And how fun it is. 

It also opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. I can only reach a certain level of productivity working alone, no matter how much I improve personal skills like focus and time management. I can’t wait to see what I can make with others, working together.