Invite play into your process

One day, you may feel the craft you love hardening into drudge. There is only one cure. Invite play into your process.

Play is a mode of thinking, it’s not just futzing around. Play turns problems into games—and games are about action, not perfection. Play encourages risks and wild ideas. Play gives rise to non-obvious connections, and crucially, human connection too.

It’s easier to collaborate when you turn down the pressure. It makes work feel lighter which makes it easier to do and that makes it more likely to happen. Such is the paradox of play: sometimes the scenic route is faster. Sometimes the waste is what works.

I was gifted this lesson from a demanding (tyrannical, even) taskmaster of a boss, namely me , when I was self-employed. I learned to tell myself ” nothing is on fire” and I put down the whip.

So make the making merry. Don’t just carry out the process, revel in it. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is find the part worth celebrating.