If you want to be more creative, be less certain

🐉 Somehow, it’s Friday! And tomorrow begins the Year of the Dragon.
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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans today are half as likely to take weeklong vacations than they were 40 years ago. (This is despite the fact that more than 90% of full-time U.S. workers have access to PTO!) “It’s hard not to get blinded by our world of endless production,” writes web designer Ida Persson, who sparked a conversation about burnout and creativity on Medium last week. In Persson’s experience, churning out content at a breakneck pace is at odds with real growth in any creative industry. If you want to be truly creative you have to learn to embrace ambiguity, which means exploring avenues that may not lead anywhere immediately valuable.

If you’re a creative person (and I’m guessing many of you are) and notice your work feeling more like a checklist than an exploration, Persson writes, that’s a sign. You need to slow down.

Speaking of slowing down, if you have a chance this weekend, I recommend reading “How to do nothing,” artist Jenny Odell’s popular essay that became a bestselling book about escaping productivity culture. It’s a 45 minute read, but those 45 minutes are time well spent. The first rule of “doing nothing”: Notice things. “To do nothing is to hold yourself still so you can perceive what is actually there,” Odell suggests. Or, in the words of Emmy award-winning sound sampler Gordon Hempton: “Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”

Work in 1886 v. today (Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions via Jenny Odell)

What else we’re reading

• NYU business school professor Scott Galloway draws one lesson from 30 years in business, marketing, and media: Know when to walk away. Quitting at the right time, and for the right reasons, is a virtue. Instead of calling it “quitting,” Galloway writes, let’s call it “onwarding.”
• It’s still the beginning of the year (ish), and time management expert Laura Vanderkam advises mapping out all of your vacation time for the next 11 months now. Build your balanced portfolio of time off, and remember that this can include days for simply recharging at home. (Never underestimate the impact of the occasional Wednesday off!) Whatever vacations you’re planning, get them on the calendar early — ”mentally consider the trip booked,” Vanderkam writes, “so you can start the happy process of looking forward to it.”
• Lunar New Year is tomorrow, and it’s tradition to exchange red envelopes filled with money. (The money isn’t nearly as important as the envelopes themselves; red symbolizes good luck and good fortune.) Writer TzeLin Sam shares her collection of beautifully designed Lunar New Year packets, like these:

Photo by TzeLin Sam

One more daily dose of practical wisdom

Try replacing “I should…” with “I want to…”.

Written by Harris Sockel
Edited by Scott Lamb

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