Digital Remit Book Club: Are we all going ‘Too Fast To Think’?

Take time to read this, and you’ll have more time

This was the cover quote from Chris Lewis’s book – ‘Too Fast To Think – How to Reclaim your Creativity in a Hyper-Connected Work Culture ‘.

However, having discussed it at some length during the Oxford Business Book Club (*), I’m not too sure how many practical tips were actually provided?

Theoretical v Practical Advice?

There was plenty of theory on information overload, how the brain works, why sleep is important, the eight Creative Traits….etc, but a lot of this was deemed by the Book Club to be ‘self-confirmatory’, or using research selectively to suit the point in question.

Personally, I really liked the Case Studies though – these were great at illustrating how creative people had managed to harness creativity with commerciality.

I’ve picked out two Case Studies from the book to illustrate this point:

1. Tom Palmer – film director & author (p15-17)

“It’s all about the edit”

This brings to mind one of my favourite Hemmingway quotes, “Write Drunk, Edit Sober”...or the fact that it is the non-creative process which sets the truly creative person apart from the crowd.

• “You have to be an outsider to be creative” – this, however,  can be a problem if you are deemed creative but not commercial; e.g. Tom feels that the Film Industry is run by accountants.
• “I get my best ideas in the bath” – it is essential to allow yourself some creative space.
• Tom correalates peace with creativity, so the more remote or cut-off you are, the better in his opinion.

2. Vanessa Brady – founder of The Society of British and International Design (p33-36)

“Standards are getting higher in creativity and this is being driven by Millenials”

• Social media is really a misnomer – it prevents people from talking to each other…it’s anti-social
• So many problems come from an email culture, where a minor misunderstanding in a creative brief can escalate – she has a straightforward rule after 2 emails have failed to solve a problem…it’s called ‘Ping – Pong – Ring’!
• A creative person wants to give – you might ask them for 40 hours and they will freely give 60 hours, so you have to measure how productive they are

Vanessa makes a clear distinction in her timetable, between her creative and commercial sides, and maintains that all ‘creatives’ should have this sidziscipline;

• e.g. she does all her creative work on Mondays and Fridays and only checks email in the month and evenings.
• All meetings last an hour
• The resulting time saved is used for exercise 

Related articles

http://www.nobleword.co.uk/solvitas-perambulum/

http://www.nobleword.co.uk/oibc-book-month-cultural-issues-kaleidoscope/

(*) Oxford Business Book Club:  

The Oxford Business Book Club meets monthly at Blackwell’s Book Shop, and is organised and run by Digital Remit.