I love creating. But my excitement over an idea often leads to impulsive implementation. Often I’m juggling too many balls and spinning too many plates. Without discipline, creativity loses its focus, leading to diluted outcomes. Creativity requires discernment and selectivity to yield the best fruit. Over the past year and half, I have sought a more disciplined life, sparked by the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (which I highly recommend).
Putting essentialism into practice is easier said than done. All those spinning projects don’t stop at once. It takes time to form new routines and adopt a tempered pace. Essentialism is a contemplative posture that discerns “the vital few from the trivial many.” What is the most important thing that deserves my focus and energy?
Since much of my creativity has involved online platforms, the book Digital Minimalismhas been a helpful supplement for practicing essentialism. I have a tendency to create an assortment of websites or social media accounts for whatever new idea I’ve concocted.
As one example, upon observing hyper-transient American culture, I thought, We need a movement to encourage rootedness! It will combat our social fragmentation and loneliness. The next thing you know, I created Rooted People, “a movement of community and friendship” complete with website, Facebook page, and Twitter account. The website and social media encouraged people to develop local chapters promoting the “value of thriving where you are planted.” I posted about intentional community, housing co-ops, and friendship. It was a great idea. But I didn’t stick with it. Soon I was chasing the next idea and creating new projects.
Another venture sought to highlight women biblical scholars. One weekend, I noticed the internet lacked information on this demographic. I impulsively decided I was the person to fix the problem. As a doctoral student in biblical studies whose classmates and teachers were primarily men, I wanted to highlight women in the field. I created a website, a social media account, a dedicated email, and I reached out to scholars for interviews. The project garnered quite a bit of interest on social media. But it was too much to maintain with other work on my plate. Now I’m discerning what to do with the site.
From 2007, when I first started a blog, and up to today, I’ve created at least thirteen websites, three to four additional URLs that I never used, twelve social media accounts, and numerous email addresses. Plus, I have YouTube, Vimeo, and Thinkific pages, as well as now two Substacks. All of them had/have some noble cause behind them. But, can you imagine trying to live a sensible life while managing all these disparate initiatives? I wonder how many other creatives out there become derailed by this lack of focus.
Several months ago, I started deleting social media accounts, including Instagram, four Twitter accounts, Bluesky, Goodreads, and a few Facebook pages. It’s a good start but I’ve still got more to do, especially with pruning my website collection. Several websites are archived or lying dormant on the web, crumbling like old, dilapidated houses left to wither in the weather. Not only does it sap brain energy keeping track of these various sites, but they are left vulnerable to hackers ready to pillage neglected accounts.
Sometimes I wonder what my impact could have been if I had simply maintained the blog I started in 2007, updating it over time. No doubt, I have lost followers and friends jumping from digital place to place. The call to rootedness is not only for physical place, but also virtual place. I’m learning that undisciplined creativity only leads to fragmentation. Of course, this tendency is not helped by marketing that constantly tempts us to new accounts on the latest, greatest platform. Too many options to choose from can fuel self-defeating perfectionism.
My need for greater creative discipline is sometimes thwarted by the on-going existential quest for purpose. What am I called to do in this life? What are my gifts? What do I love? What is God’s will for me? One of my former pastors once said, “God’s will is not a dot.” It’s not a tiny bull’s eye I must hit to be in divine good graces. God’s call to love can take shape in a person’s life in a variety of ways. But sometimes the wide open sea full of possibilities can spur it’s own set of problems. God’s will is not a dot, but indulging too many choices results in a scattershot approach to life.
Over the next several months, I will continue to make changes to discipline my creativity, including weeding out certain projects with their accompanying online sites. In fact, this past week, I’ve already started the process of discontinuing a major website and a few email addresses. It’s rather time consuming to downsize, but the end goal is worth it. Soon I won’t be pulled in so many different directions.
What about you? Have you ever found creativity taking you in too many directions?