George Kao argues that regular schedules boost creativity, not kill it. He releases multiple videos weekly on his own energy-aligned timetable, using open-ended "lifelines" instead of rigid hourly blocks. Scheduled sessions as non-judgmental deadlines increase output, speed skill growth, and stabilize income.
I didn't feel like coming here and making this video today, but I did it anyway because I have an expectation for myself that I release several videos a week. If you were to wait for me to be inspired before I make this video for you, you'll be waiting a long time. And my content creativity would be slowed down a lot more. And so I have learned and practiced having creative output on a schedule. And I know that word schedule scares some of you, and I understand. I honestly used to rebel against schedules and calendars as well. I used to, you know, once I was able to start my own business, I said, oh, now that I have my business, I don't have to. I can be my own boss. I can create whenever I feel like creating, see clients whenever I feel like seeing them, etc, etc, and then I learned over pretty quickly in the first year of my business that the more stable my schedule is, the more stable my income tends to be, and also the more stable my creative output tends to be, which of course is, as I create more content on a regular basis, clients find me and inquire with me on a more regular basis as well. And so I want to encourage you in this video to reform your relationship to the idea of a schedule and of structure. Now, it takes reform, because I think we all grow up unfortunately with, well, we all grew up with authority figures in our lives that most of those authority figures haven't learned how to create structure for us in a way that is really enjoyable. So the school system, maybe you didn't enjoy the schedule. It was painful to have to work by the schedule of a school. And then your parents, after you came home from school, probably gave you a schedule for doing homework or whatever it may be, going to bed at a particular time, waking up, and then you go to work and your boss gives you a schedule of when to come in. And otherwise you'll be punished, you'll be fired if you're late too many times, and what to do during the day. And so when we become more adults and have more control over our own careers, like start a business, we start to say, now I get to do whatever I want. And we start. We sometimes erroneously throw out this idea of schedule or throw it out too much, and a lot of the good goes out with, with that. So I, you know, actually one interesting thought is if you look at the lives of the most creative people in history, Van Gogh, for example, created on a schedule, right? And I would say most famous artists, most artists that do a lot of amazing creative work, they produce On a schedule and it's their own schedule. I am not saying that my schedule is right. I'm saying that you need to create a schedule that matches with your energy, that allows you the maximum creative output and allows you to do your work, that creates a more stable income. And don't start with scheduling every hour of your day if you're not used to that. Right. When I started scheduling, scheduling my day, I made a lot of mistakes over the years learning how to do that. And one of those mistakes was trying to start with a scheduled day like every hour I do this. If you right now are completely go with the flow, you need to create a much more open ended schedule. But it's still a schedule, which means that there comes a time in your schedule for you to actually do the output. You need to give yourself that deadline, okay? And let's call it a lifeline, if you, if you prefer that word. But if you give yourself that, that boundary, okay? And say, you know what, Brain, heart, spirit, this is the time I'm going to create. In this hour or in these four hours that I've scheduled for myself, I'm going to create. And I'm not, here's the key. I'm not going to judge myself for what happens after this hour or these four hours. I'm just going to do my best to create and whatever's created has been created. And the next time I do this, next time I follow my schedule again and I create on demand, on schedule, it'll be slightly better. And each time I do this, it'll be slightly better. And so this is what I've learned to do. And therefore I have my brain, my spirit, my heart has become entrained to create at certain times of the week and certain times of the day. It's something I intentionally created. Otherwise, like I said, you'll only see, you know, a video a month from me instead of 12 videos a month. Right. Therefore, I'm able to much more rapidly increase my, my content base as well as my own creativity. And the practice of creating content can't happen unless you create content. And there's my dog Buddy saying hi. So I think this video has gone long enough. As usual, there's more thoughts in the writing associated with this video. It's on YouTube. It's underneath the video in the description. There's more writing always. And then in Facebook might be above or below. But that's my encouragement to you today. It is possible to reform your relationship to the idea of a scheduled day or a scheduled week so that you can have more creative output and a more stable income in your business.
