The Art of Making Lists (or Sandwiches)

part 1 of a multi-part series on creativity

Happy holiday weekend!

I hope you get to enjoy some fun for yourself this weekend. 

Fun, in this case, doesn’t mean day drinking as a pre-cursor to setting off fireworks. It doesn’t mean sitting in traffic for hours, then schlepping a car-load full of necessities over hot sand searching for a tiny patch of unclaimed beach to broil in the sun for a few hours. It doesn’t mean staking your claim to a square of dirt, pitching a musty old tent then swatting at bugs while listening to the pack of drunken idiots at a nearby campsite. 

We all have a different definition of fun. And there are different kinds of fun. I want to talk about one of my favorite kinds of fun: creative fun. 

Ok, sorry, I just used a really loaded word: creative. No, I’m not just talking to “artists.” I’m talking to all y’all. We. Are. All. Creative. It’s part of our human DNA. The coding goes all the way back to our primitive days, when our ability to create things like shelter and vessels for cooking were drivers of our survival as a species. Individually, we’ve been freed from the tyranny of creativity as a survival mechanism—we have Dollar Stores to supply our most basic needs, but the urge to create is still there. So, what do we do with it?

We make shit, that’s what. 

Creativity, simply put, is the act of imagining something and making it real. Nothing about creativity implies a prerequisite drawing ability, and yet, that doomed couple, drawing and creativity, seems to dominate people’s interior headlines.

How to be creative: you think of something, then bring it into existence. Boom, that easy. It doesn’t need to be the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal, or War and Peace. It can be a haiku about a news story, a unique twist on a sandwich, a data point on a chart, (even a small chart), a list, or a crocheted granny square.  

Today’s Activity:

It’s really easy, you need a pen and some paper. I suggest a page in your journal, but the back of an envelope from your recycle bin is fine. 

• Step 1: Set a timer for 5 minutes. Make a list of things that you like.

• Step 2: Set a timer for another 5 minutes. Make a list of things that you like to make.

• Step 3: Look at that second list really hard. Put a heart next to your favorite things.

• Step 4: Look at the second list again. Put a star next the making that could be performed in no more than 5 to 10 minutes per day. 

• Step 5: Consider what it would look and feel like if you committed to that small creative act Every. Single. Day. Imagine yourself in flow for a little bit every day. The same amount of time (or less) you’d invest in brushing your teeth, shaving, reading take-out menus or waiting in the drive-through line—nope, I’m not even going to say scrolling. How much time you devote to that is your own business. 

In our exploration of a daily practice, we aren’t just concerned with what our mornings look like. We take a holistic approach—our whole day. Not regimenting every hour of every day, just understanding that when certain activities occur daily it contributes to our overall well-being. Think about how you feel when you haven’t pooped in a couple of days. Everything gets backed up and feels out of whack. 

Your creative energy is the same, it just isn’t so obviously life-threatening and physically uncomfortable. But it still wants to come out of you every single day.

What I am asking of you today:

• Think about yourself as a creative person.

• Think of what your creative superpowers are.

• Think about using them every day.

• Make some lists.

• Read some lists.

What I’m not asking of you today:

• Paint the Sistine Chapel.

• Commit to painting the Sistine Chapel. 

• Learn how to draw.

• Share your creative acts with the world.

I would never give you such an important assignment without doing a little work myself. My gift to you is an incomplete list of human creative endeavors. Feel free to add more in the comments.

Things humans create:

• Towers of beer cans

• Lists

• Sandwiches

• Drama

• Speech

• Messes

• Playlists

• Dances

• Noises

• Lies

• Lines

• Marks

• Stories

• Time capsules

• Photo albums

• Flowcharts

• Goals

• Haikus

• Renovations on old things

• Reenactments

• Dreams

• Garbage

• Cookies

• Tik-toks

• Songs

• Gardens

• Sand castles

• Doll Houses

• Doodles

• Poop

• Itineraries

• Cocktails

• Code (computer and otherwise)

• Treasure maps

• Miniatures

• Plans

• Selfies

• Fingernails

• Legal briefs

• Underpants

• Venn Diagrams

• Money

• Sex tapes

• Stuff

• Houses of cards

• Graffiti

• Stick figures

Side note: 

Just for funsies (seriously, I’m curious and love researching fun things) I googled “things we create” to help me make this list. Sadly, those search parameters did not offer any clarification, but you know what it did turn up? 

Hundreds of articles about how to turn the thing you like making into Cold! Hard! Cash!

You know what sucks?

Trying to monetize doing the thing you love. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know the whole do what you love and the money will follow or if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life. I’m calling shenanigans on all of that bullshit.

What if you found a creative activity and you do it just for the joy of doing it? Not trying to turn it into a full-time career, not trying to boost your Etsy sales, just because you love doing that thing. And you devote a few moments every day to that pleasure.

Keep your lists handy, we’ll be talking more about creativity next week. See you for snack break.