Consume, Communicate, Create
Posted in opinion on December 27th, 2011 by ben – 2 CommentsTL;DR
- Our lives can be divided into 3 major activities: Consuming, Communicating, and Creating.
- Only Creating adds value to the world
- Find ways to do more creating
I frequently cite a blog post that describes our lives divided into 3 distinct buckets of activity: consuming, communicating, or creating.[1] Around the same time I read that, I read Leo Babauta’s free ebook about “Focus: a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction.” The book used similar words, and reinforced this separation with the assertion that creativity can’t happen with all the distractions of consuming and communicating.[2]
Think through your daily activities, and most everything you do can be put in one of following 3 buckets:
- Consuming: All the time we spend reading email, books, social media, watching TV. Eating and driving are forms of consumption too!
- Communicating: At work, it’s meetings, water cooler chat, email, time tracking, etc. At home, it’s time spent talking with loved ones, writing emails to friends, sharing our status and life events, etc.
- Creating: Any activity that reduces entropy in the world, whether our creations are made of words, computer code, sound, paint, wood, etc. This includes any form of teaching.
It’s not just that those activities are distinct, but they also match up to a spectrum of the value we add to the world. Consumption adds nothing, Communication is often necessary to help others with their creation process, and Creation is where we really distinguish ourselves as members of society. It’s not that the first two are inherently wasteful or bad, it’s just that creation is the only way to truly add value.
Another key realization is that same sequence corresponds to required level of energy: Consumption requires no energy (put another way, inertia keeps us on the couch), Communication takes some, but Creating takes “real” energy.
It should be a goal for all of us to increase the amount of time we spending creating, rather than simply consuming.
Some ways I’ve found to move towards that goal:
- Be mindful of which bucket your current activity is in. Knowing that reading Twitter and RSS feeds is “consumption” is often enough to guilt me into a different activity. [3]
- Use blocks of time for focus, and the longer the interval, pick a more energy-intense task that will create something
- Sometimes consumption is a reward for creation well done. After a good day of creating, it’s OK to surf. On a smaller scale, this is the Pomodoro Technique
- Exercise consumes energy, but (paradoxically?) it also generates energy that can be tapped for more creation.
What do you do to increase time you spend creating?
[1] The point of the post was really as a prediction of why the iPad would be a hit, since it filled a new niche not covered by our desktop computers or mobile phones.
[2] The key for increasing time for creating is focus. The book continues with practical advice for achieving focus with multiple chapters on clearing distractions, simplifying, and focus rituals.
[3] To be honest, I distinguish 2 forms of consumption: 1) mindless reading twitter or Facebook feeds, following rumor blogs, playing solitaire, or watching TV and 2) active reading/watching content that affects my career or project obligations. I can fight the inertia of mindless hyperlink clicking by tell myself I at least I’m consuming something will allow me to create something in the future.
