Everyday I’m Shuffling | Shorts

A prime means of creativity is our ability to constantly rearrange things in our life. Take the planet we walk on for an example, it’s constantly, although slowly, moving beneath our feet. The plates of our earth’s crust shift to form new land.

Even in our efforts to populate the planet is a shuffle of our DNA with another’s. Our genetic deck gets shuffled in with another to design what we hope will be the best parts of us and make a better human.

Rearrangement plays a significant role in our lives everywhere. In one of my favorite examples, a coach for a sports team must decide the best line-up or bench to start to improve the team’s overall performance on the court/field. In my life with business, I might have to shuffle a schedule around to have the right person, in the right place, at the right time to maximize the customer experience. In music, another favorite of mine, I compose playlists that give me the best listening experience for what I am about to launch into. A running playlist is going to mirror my max BPM for my longer runs to keep me going.

My last example is film. A screenwriter might alter the typical plot lines to create a more compelling story for the theater goer. A French director Jean-Luc Godard put it this way:

I like a film to have beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in the order.

So, instead of spending so much creative energy in fighting the shuffling of your work, I encourage you to max it out. A refresh to an idea you have, by mixing it up, yields highly in your favor. But, it involves letting your work go and not holding it so close. Here’s some ways to do just that:

• Think about how you can rearrange like I did above with issues and some of your work.
• What if you put your “in-side” on the “outside” or “top” on the “bottom”? What would it yield? Right that experience down on paper or in a journal.
• Hope about something as simple as flipping your “left” and your “right”?

Take a look at your week and your calendar. Think about this before you start your week…What can you rearrange? How would it be different?

How much better would your week be if you started with the end instead of the beginning? Thanks and hope you have a great Monday and start to your week.

Shawn