Today’s edition is all about recognizing good ideas. 

Also, the Action Method warehouse has been refilled (mostly) after a recent surge in demand emptied it out.

We’ll let you put two and two together there :-)

P.s. More action awaits you in our archives, including how Steve Jobs cultivated great taste, the personality trait shared by 1381 millionaires, and 40 principles relied on by the world’s greatest creatives. 

Recognize when an idea catches

Greg Broadmore has built an impressive career as a lead concept designer, creating entire worlds and characters for Hollywood movies such as Avatar, The Chronicles of Narnia, and District 9.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Broadmore’s career arc was unexpectedly bent out of shape. The games company that he was in the midst of building lost funding practically overnight, forcing him to abandon years of work that would now never see the light of day.

“What next?” Broadmore was left wondering. “I thought… I need to go back and do something that I can do on my own.” As he sat at home during lockdown, staring out of his window, his imagination began to whir. Fast forward five years and Broadmore sat down with Tim Ferriss to discuss his comeback project: One Path, a comic book series that features a tribe of cave women fighting to survive in a prehistoric world of dinosaurs.

Curious as to how Broadmore managed to single handedly design an entire world and its inhabitants from scratch (again), Ferriss asks for a breakdown of his creative process.

“I tend to draw first mainly in pencil,” Broadmore reveals. “Then go into Photoshop from there if it’s interesting. But the first thing was really conversations. I would be having conversations with my co-authors just bouncing back, and it was really just percolating on ideas in the broadest possible sense of everything that could happen, why the world would be the way it was, and all the ingredients.”

All of this low fidelity exploration (a key theme we’ve explored in previous editions) is a set up for the magic moment that comes next, when suddenly, “some idea really catches your mind. And I can see a spark of it. See a little vision. Then it’s like—‘I’m going to draw that! I’m going to draw that moment.’”

For Broadmore, recognizing when an idea “catches” in his mind is one of the most precious moments in the creative process. It is often the beginning of a new world, character, or scene. Every creative has a word for this moment, sometimes a click, sometimes a spark, or even an “aha!,” but whatever you decide to call it—becoming attuned to this sensation: when your mind latches onto an idea in a way that stands out from the rest—is one of the most critical sensitivities that you can learn to hone.

David Lynch, “widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time” agrees and explains why click-sensitivity is so important…

_{*while Greg Broadmore is the sole illustrator credited on One Path, he collaborated with Andy Lanning and Nick Boshier on the writing.}

That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone

In 2005, David Lynch published Catching the Big Fish, a book in which he shares the creative approaches and life philosophies that were most valuable to him.

Lynch's movies are renowned for their surreal concepts and vivid imagery, so one of the more intriguing revelations is the process by which his screenplays originate.

“An idea is a thought,” Lynch writes, “It’s a thought that holds more than you think it does when you receive it.” “It would be great if the entire film came all at once, but it comes, for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone. It’s the piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It’s a hopeful puzzle piece. In Blue Velvet, it was red lips, green lawns, and the song—Bobby Vinton’s version of ‘Blue Velvet.’ The next thing was an ear lying in a field. And that was it. You fall in love with the first idea, that little tiny piece. And once you’ve got it, the rest will come in time.”

Lynch views the arrival of this first-little-idea-that-clicks as catching a fish, emphasizing that the first one you catch is the most important one of all. Why? Because “that idea that you caught might just be a fragment of the whole—whatever it is you’re working on. Thinking about that small fragment, that little fish, will bring in more. And they’ll come in and they’ll hook on. And more and more come in and pretty soon you might have a script, or a chair, or a painting.” “I like to think of it as—in the other room the puzzle is all together—but they [the puzzle pieces] keep flipping in just one piece at a time.”

This is why we must never neglect a little idea that clicks. 

You never know which one will contain an ocean of depth and potential.

Every great achievement starts out as a tiny idea—but a tiny idea can only become a great achievement if you double click on it and have the patience to follow its thread. 

In a way, the ability to recognize a click is an instinct, and instincts can play a valuable role in other parts of the creative process if we let them…

There’s a reason your body is bubbling it up 

When Rahul Vohra started a premium email software company in 2014 called Superhuman, some wondered if he’d gone mad. After all, why would anyone pay for email in a world where products like Gmail are available for free?

By 2022, Superhuman’s millions of dollars of annual revenue had gone a long way to shrug off the external doubters, but Vohra now felt a nagging inner frustration brewing.

Some users were complaining that the company’s pace had slowed down and Vohra himself felt encumbered with administrative tasks. He couldn’t shake the feeling that these tasks were pulling him away from his “zone of genius” which included activities related to product design and marketing.

“So,” Vohra recently disclosed, “I came up with the following idea: what if I just did whatever the heck I wanted?”

Vohra fired himself from the burdensome tasks by hiring someone whose zone of genius did align with those responsibilities. 

Next, he handed the reins of his to-do list to his instincts—giving himself permission to work on whatever tasks he felt like working on.

“Instead of having to constantly look at the calendar and think, ‘oh, should I stop this task, start that task?’ I can just do what I want,” Vohra explains, “like if what I feel right now is, oh boy, I really need to prepare for Lenny's podcast, I'll go ahead and do that. And if I get bored or distracted eight minutes in, which sometimes happens because something else just bubbles up to the top of my mind, well, there's a reason that my body is bubbling it up to the top of my mind.” “So I'm very keen on the idea of being aware and listening to what's bubbling up. And so it's okay for me to then go and attend to that thought as opposed to start to expend my focus points or my discipline or willpower on the thing that I thought I was meant to be doing.”

This approach is unconventional to say the least. But with revenue at an all time high, Vohra’s trust-your-gut productivity seems to be paying dividends, with a few caveats, of course:

“And by the way,” Vohra clarifies, “you should obviously turn up for your meetings. I'm not saying just like blow through your meetings and not turn up for your one-on-ones. Definitely do those things.”

Vohra also keeps a record of how he spends so he can maintain an awareness of where his hours are going.

But ultimately if something “bubbles up” for Vohra while he’s in the middle of a task then he will either stop what he’s doing and “attend to that task because there's a reason it's bubbling up right now” or otherwise he will at least “scribble it down” in an A3 sketchbook that he keeps handy.

Obviously we can’t all work on whatever we feel like all of the time.

Not everyone is in a position to create the same level of task-freedom as someone who is running their own company.

But to the extent that you can schedule trust-your-gut work windows into your week, you may find that the tasks you choose to pursue are more naturally aligned with your strengths—making your work both more impactful and fulfilling.

An interesting side bar is that Vohra credits his daily Transcendental Meditation practice as a crucial habit for calibrating his instincts and his ability to trust in what his mind surfaces.

A happy coincidence discovered during the research for this edition is that David Lynch also used Transcendental Meditation as a creative wellspring, writing that “If you can expand the container you’re fishing in—your consciousness—you can catch bigger fish. Here’s how it works: Inside every human being is an ocean of pure, vibrant consciousness. When you ‘transcend’ in Transcendental Meditation, you dive down into that ocean of pure consciousness. You splash into it. And it’s bliss. You can vibrate with this bliss. Experiencing pure consciousness enlivens it, expands it. It starts to unfold and grow.”

Vohra’s story gives rare credence to the notion that our instincts can serve as a powerful task management system (apparently made stronger through meditation) under the right conditions.

In a sea of productivity advice that revolves around willpower and planning, it’s a refreshing reminder that the path to optimal results can sometimes be to just “work on whatever the heck you want.”

But don’t go out and delete your to-do list app just yet because we’ve got one last use case for your instincts before you go…

It’s the answer you can’t stop thinking about

In addition to being a professor of computer science at Georgetown University, Cal Newport is also, to use a technical term, a content machine.

He has published nine books on topics related to productivity over the past 20 years (many of which are global bestsellers), is a frequent author of articles in The New Yorker, and maintains a steady stream of content for his own personal blog and podcast.

Naturally one question Newport gets asked a lot is how he keeps track of what to write about. How does he manage all of his content ideas? Does he use notetaking methods like the Zettelkasten system or mind maps perhaps?

None of the above.

“Most professional thinkers I know don’t use these sort of complicated thought organization techniques,” Newport admits. “They don’t use mental maps. They don’t have Zettelkasten systems. They take in a lot of information. They trust their brain. Their brain is the best mental map producer and Zettelkasten organizer there is. Ideas stick, they keep recurring, and they say OK I’m going to take that idea and I’m going to work on it.”

There is great value in recognizing an idea that clicks and perhaps just as much value in recognizing an idea that sticks—one that continuously resurfaces in your mind over time. Newport confesses that he sometimes just asks himself what ideas have been playing on his mind in recent days and then uses the answer to inform what he writes about.

J.J. Abrams has also relied on idea-stickiness to determine which films to work on, as he once disclosed, “I try to push ideas away, and the ones that will not leave me alone are the ones that ultimately end up happening.”

“So no I’m not against these systems,” Newport concludes, “but no I don’t buy that these systems unlock more creativity or more efficiency or productivity when it comes to professional idea production. Keep your systems stupid, keep your output great.”

Whether you’re debating what project to pursue next or even a major life decision—the answer might just be that idea you can’t stop thinking about.

Listen carefully to the ideas that click, bubble up, and stick in your mind.

These instincts will often give you a stronger direction than any artificial system ever could.

Be ready to hear what whispers

Some closing thoughts from the great Steven Spielberg:

“When you have a dream it doesn’t often come at you screaming in your face: ‘this is who you are, this is what you must be for the rest of your life.’ Sometimes a dream almost whispers. And I’ve always said to my kids, the hardest thing to listen to [is] your instincts, your human personal intuition. It always whispers, it never shouts, it’s very hard to hear. So you have to—every day of your life—be ready to hear what whispers in your ear. And if you can listen to the whisper and it tickles your heart and is something you think you want to do for the rest of your life, then that is going to be what you do for the rest of your life, and we will benefit from everything you do.”

Before You Go… Give Your Creative Workflow A Glow-Up!

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• The Dot Grid Book — provides the perfect canvas for uninhibited, free-flowing creative exploration, used by some of the world's best designers since 2008.

• The Action Pad — designed for quick idea capture: ideal for your workspace or meeting rooms. Effortlessly grab a sheet, jot down actionable ideas on the fly, and share insights in real-time.

This action packed bundle is designed by and for creative professionals to help you turn your ideas into action quicker than you can say “Let's Freaking Go.”

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Thanks for subscribing, and sharing anything you’ve learned with your teams and networks (let us know what you think and share ideas: @ActionDigest).