Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them — Steve Jobs
I have a habit of scrolling Twitter too much and it was during breakfast on a typical Saturday while my omelette was starting to brown at the edges, when I stopped scrolling at one such good work of a designer [a tool to edit images with different built-in features] which was done part using their own brain and AI [Claude]. I landed on their profile to see their other works and that’s where I felt my gut being pulled in and breathed life into my imposter syndrome. There were ideas which some I hadn’t possibly thought of and some I did and there they had made those ideas come alive. Those ideas had just been in my head or written in my Notes app.
I took my omelette to the desk and opened Xcode + Claude Code to continue work on a To-do + Habits app I had stopped working on 5 months ago, feeling motivated after seeing that twitter user work.
Half an hour passed, I had not even prompted Claude or opened the app folder on Xcode to start the work, I found myself questioning: “This will take a lot of time, lets do it later”, “What should I make first”, “Let’s sketch it and wireframe first” I closed the laptop, feeling overwhelmed and drowning in imposter syndrome.
I scrolled Pinterest to ease myself and landed on some crazy good illustrations, animations. I opened Procreate on my ipad to create something. Then again found myself questioning “What should I draw?”, “How about I draw that Batman funko on my desk quickly”, “Maybe, lets start with something quick”. I closed my Ipad and felt like writing about this, so I opened Apple Notes on my desktop to write some words and again those questions “What example should I write”, “Maybe I should think through first”, “Let’s rough it out first”.
I closed the Notes app, opened Twitter on Phone and went back to scrolling past more good work. More ideas brought to life. More thoughts being written. More people creating while I was back to consuming instead of creating and realised this was the 3rd time today I had opened an app to create something. The third time I had talked myself out of creating and this was the loop I had been stuck on.
It had been the same for 2 weeks, I had been stuck in that loop of wanting to start something and convincing myself I was creative enough. Then on another Sunday, which will always be my laziest day I read an article from Julie Zhou — Looking Glass: So you want to write better?
I opened the writing app on my Mac and wrote the title “How I have to be more creative”. Immediately, the questions “Is this even good”, “Will anyone even read”, “Maybe change the title” “These are just thoughts that rattle my brain, why would anyone read this” fogged my brain but I just kept writing rather than finding answers to those questions and I finished a paragraph about this same blog, which I will accept was very very long.
Then on Day 2 I wrote some more and the same on Day 3 and 4 — I kept jotting my thoughts down even though the questions keep coming up with each statement. I don’t write about the same thing everyday. These days I write at 7 in the morning everyday, not because I am a supreme sorcerer at creativity, but because I’ve learned the questions will always come.
This blog post? It began as a mess of tangents and too many thoughts. The polished version you’re reading came later. But it only exists because I gave myself permission to write the ugly version first and maybe this version, if I read it again after some time, will need more polish.
Between the job and daily life, I don’t get to open Procreate to draw, or open XCode to create every project I imagine. But I’ve learned that creating something ugly and imperfect is better than perfecting my excuses and answering the questions that fog my brain. Every morning I write. Some evenings it’s a rough sketch on my iPad. Some weekends it’s opening that To-Do + Habits app or my own Portfolio I abandoned and adding just one feature, however broken.
The questions still come. They always will. But these days, I start anyway.
I still scroll Twitter far too long. I still see the works that sink my gut. But rather than losing myself in the fog of questions, I start creating.