Adaptive Path Blog

Today marks day 30 of my 90 Mobiles in 90 Days project. I’m one-third done, and I’ve spent today reflecting on what I’ve learned so far.

Post-Project Blues = loss of a creative outlet
The purpose of 90 Mobiles in 90 Days was to help exorcise some bad vu from a project and to better understand why I got so blue after projects end. One of the learnings over the last 30 days has been this: the post-projects blues isn’t about mourning the end of a project — it’s caused by the loss of a creative outlet.

The benefit of my job is that it provides me with a creative outlet, but there is a natural ebb and flow to project work that is inherently inconsistent. It’s easy for me to get stuck in the “project hole”. I’ve realized that I need additional and consistent creative outlets in my life to remain happy and manage the natural flux of being a consultant.

The law of averages
This project reminded me of a college painting assignment. The instructor assigned the class the task of painting 30 paintings in a week. Seven days and a demoralizing critique later, she told us the point of the exercise was not to produce brilliant work, but to give us a template for a process. She believed in the law of averages — the more you paint, the better chance you will have at creating something great. She encouraged us to be prolific and success would follow.

Some of the ideas from the last 30 days are good, some of the ideas stink — but the point isn’t as much about the quality of the ideas, but to just put something down — make something, do something. Ideas in my head are just that… in my head - stuck, unexplored, undocumented, unborn. Writing ideas down and giving them form gives them somewhere to go - it gives them a sense of life and vibrancy; of movement and velocity.

Renewed engagement with the world
I’ve realized that ideas and inspiration can come from anywhere - in fact, most ideas come from the world around me. Since I’ve been documenting an idea a day, I’ve felt a lot more engaged with the world because I rely on it as a source of inspiration. This process has opened me up to people and conversation. I’ve become more engaged with my neighborhood, the city, with nature. This project has made me more observant and patient.

Most importantly, I feel deep sense of gratitude to friends, family and folks out there who have commented, emailed me, and referenced my work. Thank you.

Who knows what the next 60 days will bring….

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This post is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.