A short talk by TJ Walker encouraging daily, low-effort creative acts done purely for personal enjoyment rather than commercial success or mastery. He recommends committing brief (about two minutes) micro-creations—jokes, drawings, poems, songs—to shift mindset from consumer to creator and to make life more interesting.
Today is a day for fun. I mean that. Let's forget creating the world's greatest novel or the best app that's going to make you a billionaire. Let's instead focus on just creating for fun's sake. I want you to come up with something where you know 99% certainty you're never going to sell it. You might not ever even share it with anyone else. It's just creating for yourself, maybe a few close family and friends. Now, you've heard me talk about on a daily basis that I write at least one joke a day. I do a drawing every single day. I write poetry every day. Now, before you get too impressed, keep in mind I only spend two minutes or less writing a joke. I only spend two minutes or less drawing a piece of artwork. I only spend two minutes or less writing haiku, a very short form of poetry. And you probably wouldn't be impressed at all if you saw these things. But you know what? I don't care. It's fun for me. So I want you to come up with something right now that's really just for you, that's fun, that stretches your creative muscles. Because what you'll find in life is that when you turn this switch on creating, what happens over here comes out over here too. The more you're creative, just in moments of reflection, you have a little time for fun. Maybe first thing in the morning, no one else is awake in your home. It gets things going. It just stimulates a different part of your brain. And that can come out in other parts of your brain, other parts of the day, in different activities. It's a mindset when you go through life telling yourself, how can I make this more fun? How can I make this more interesting? How can I add something here? Either visually edit something, improve something, lighten it up, pretty it up, then it just makes you a more creative person. It makes life more interesting for you. It could be your gardening just changing things, coming up with new design, perhaps even trying to graft together two different types of plants or flowers. But I urge you, do something where it's not about making money. It's not about solving some great world problem either. Not necessarily something that you obtain mastery of. Don't think I'm going to become a master of drawing, but I still do it. So it's not the perfect creation for me for all time, but it's just a little something to do every day. The other thing it does is if you spend time, one little thing a day, it just makes you feel good. It makes you feel like the day wasn't wasted to know, you know what? I've already created something, so pick something. It could be trivial. And you know what? You could decide you want to draw and draw on your cell phone and after a week say, you know what? I've drawn everything I want to draw. I don't particularly enjoy it and I'm not good at it. Guess what? Don't do it anymore. Pick something else. You may decide you want to sing a song for 20 seconds, record it on your own phone, and it's maybe just for you, but create. Creation begets creation. And here's the thing, when you are creating, it changes your whole relationship with the world. Rather than you being a consumer of other people's creations, you are now a creator. There may be times when you have to consume. Everyone consumes. You have to read some news, you have to read books, you have to see what else is out there. You have to be reading a stop sign if you're driving. But you have to create as well. And you have to give some time for just downtime. That's why I've talked about meditation and turning off all other forms of stimulation, but increasing the percentage of time when you create in a day. Even if it's two minutes to try to write a dirty limerick, it's still good for this proportion aspect where you're not going through a day 100% as a consumer. So that's the challenge for you today. Pick something. The more trivial the better, as long as it's fun for you. Pick something you can create and commit to doing a little bit of it every day. I find as much as two minutes is enough to do these things one at a time, and it just makes me feel good. Pick something that makes you feel good, that's fun, that you can create.
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