Can creative people be organized?
January 29, 2023
Can creative people be organized? Creatives are often thought of as haphazard and absent-minded, but creativity and structure can coexist. In fact, ordered behavior can actually enhance creative thinking. A person may be naturally creative, but if they’re unable to harness the words and visions rattling around in their brain, their inherent creativity exists only as uncontrolled chaos.
The Creativity — Structure Duality
I’ve always thought of myself as a creative person. From a young age, I wrote short stories and poems, but I also loved to draw and build with anything I could get my hands on — from building blocks to rocks and sticks, grains of sand, playing cards, empty soda bottles and even my mother’s hair curlers.
But I’m also obsessively organized. I proofread my notes. Prioritize even the most mundane tasks. Meal plan for every day of the week. I keep a meticulous home, make vacation spreadsheets and wash my hands many times a day.
If by now, you’ve guessed that I have a primarily Type A personality, you are correct. Like most people, I’m really a mixed bag: I’m creative (Type B) and analytical (Type C), Competitive (Type A) and compassionate (Type D).
But when I consider the advantages and disadvantages of the Type A personality, it all starts to come together:
High performance in school (I graduated near the top of my class)
Healthy behaviors (I’ve never smoked, watch my diet and exercise every day of the week)
Higher risk of anxiety and depression (I suffered from major depressive disorder in college)
Stress (yep)
Perhaps not surprisingly, I have a lot on my plate. I work full-time as the content marketing director at a marketing communications agency. I help run Taylor’s Tale, the public charity I co-founded in my late sister’s honor. I train to run half marathons. I’m writing a novel (though at a snail’s pace compared to the 10-month sprint during which I wrote and edited Run to the Light). I read other people’s books (check out my Goodreads list). I raise my 4-year-old son, the only human who can convince me to ignore my to-do list in favor of building colorful towers with Magna-Tiles®.
Even the most ordinary aspects of life can be a bear to manage. If I’d figured out how to tame all of the imagined characters and conflicts and plots in my head and turn them into stories with a beginning, middle and end, I’d be an author many times over. I may have a million and one ideas, but I can’t bring them to life without a clear understanding of what I want to make with them and how to do it. Maybe that’s why copyright laws do not protect ideas as they do the tangible expression of those ideas (whether it be a book, drawing or other work).
Creative thinking isn’t an effortless act. It doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of work to mold indiscriminate thoughts into coherent concepts and the physical products of those concepts. In fact, creativity without structure might as well be bread without yeast. It may have the makings of something flavorful, but it will fail to rise, and it certainly won’t taste any good.
Why Creativity Without Order Is Like Bread Without Yeast
A couple of years ago, I read Robin Sloan’s Sourdough, a weird but wonderful little book about a programmer and her enigmatic sourdough starter. In case you aren’t familiar with sourdough starter, it’s an active colony of wild yeast and good bacteria. I loved Sourdough for its quirky main character and the curious world of Clement Street as well as the unexpected charm of a starter that makes amazing bread and might have a face in it and might even sing.
Sourdough isn’t like most bread, but even run-of-the-mill sandwich slices need yeast to rise. And order, like yeast, is an essential ingredient in the process of creating something new, whether it be a loaf of bread or a literary masterpiece. Because, just as yeast shapes otherwise unimpressive ingredients into delicious bread, order takes even the wildest ideas and gives them structure and purpose. And, just as too much or too little yeast can ruin a loaf, too much or too little order can stifle or confuse creativity.
Creative people who appreciate order can focus more easily and manage their time more efficiently. Indeed, striking the right balance between wild inspiration and planned precision may just be the key to making something beautiful.
Have something to say about the relationship between creativity and organization? Want to share your favorite recipe for homemade bread? Send me a note.
