Creative vs Productive

Creativity and productivity are opposites.

When you’re focusing on creativity, you’re exploring divergent ideas, many of which will not work, in order to find new paths and opportunities previously unseen. It’s “unproductive” –99% of this time is wasted.

When you’re focusing on productivity, you’re optimising for utilisation and efficiency, which improves output but leaves little room for divergent thinking,

Both are good. Both are useful. Both are opposites.

To be creative, we need to be at peace with effectiveness exceeding efficiency.

To be productive, we need to be at peace with travelling linear paths marked by creativity from another time.

We benefit far more from both by letting them be opposites: by letting creativity feel inefficient, and by letting productivity feel uninspired.