CSP 003 - 22 Days of creativity - a free guide

A failed creative experiment that turned out pretty good

Hey,

Hope you are well.

A couple of years ago I had a moment of lucid creativity on the train to London. I’d been feeding my brain some particularly tasty brain food in the form of blogs, pop-up newsletters and podcasts.

I was obsessed, and still am, with how I could get businesses to embrace more creativity. This was a problem I was wrangling with.

As I sat quietly on the train from Winchester to London, these ideas, problems and inputs bounced around, mashed together and popped out as an idea.

I grabbed my trusty notebook and wrote out 31 ideas for better creativity in work - a kind of field guide for leadership. I also thought: “Wouldn’t it be good to do a pop-up newsletter?”. And given the original idea was about work, why not do this on LinkedIn…..?

A series of inputs and brain food became a new creative idea. Then the hard work would begin. I had to turn these 31 ideas into advice and insights, and create this LinkedIn pop-up newsletter.

But it failed.

It failed for a number of reasons (below), but it also gave me a chance to pivot and change direction, and the free PDF download with this post is the new output for CSP.

My creative project failed because LinkedIn was a monumentally bad platform of choice.

Posts wouldn’t hold their formatting, I sometimes couldn’t even publish a post, some people couldn’t turn on notifications yet others couldn’t turn them off, and the whole thing failed after just 6 days.

And so I took those 31 ideas, condensed them down to 22 and added some images and design elements.

I wanted to share this guide here on CSP because it’s a prime example of creativity in action.

The Process

I had some valuable brain food which spurned an idea. I captured the idea and then did the work to create something from it. I shared it with the world and got immediate feedback on my choice of medium. I learned from this and pivoted because I believed in the project. And then I refactored it into something more pertinent.

When we’re creative, we always have the potential that what we create may fail. But there is learning in all that we do when we try to express ourselves.

These mistakes and failures are an opportunity to make ourselves and the process better, but only we respond to them and see the lessons.

The guide is simply 22 ideas about how to nurture your creative soul. Take from it what you wish and discard that which does not resonate. It’s been a labour of love creating this and I hope there is something in it to enjoy.

And with that, have a fab week and I will see you next time.

Rob..

A couple more screen grabs from the PDF mini-magazine. Download it directly, for free, here.

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If you enjoyed this newsletter then please consider sharing it with friends, family and other creative souls. It helps me greatly. Take it easy and see you in the next one.

Rob..

PS : If you’d like to support Creative Soul Projects then please consider paid subscription, buying the “Take A Day Off” zine or sitting my online communication workshop. It means a lot. Thank you