Slivers aren’t Helpful

I recently read David DuChemin’s book, ‘Start Ugly’. Best book I read in 2024.

A favourite section was about divided attention, slivers of time, and how neither produce great work. It’s conning ourselves to believe our creative thunderbolts can be mustered up with 20 minute slots or distracted multi-tasking.

Some of his lines:

Pg 93 - Creativity of any stripe requires our undivided attention.

Pg 94 - people who multitask during cognitive tasks experienced a drop in IQ of 15 points, leaving them on par with an 8-year-old child.

Pg 95 - I think we get less done because we're just overwhelmed with it all - and it's easier to spend a day feeling busy and switching focus from this to that and back again - than it is to slow down, take a deep breath, make a plan and take things one at a time. It is not enough to put a 2-hour block on the calendar to get the thing done, or to make those ugly first efforts. It's got to be undistracted time.

Pg 99 - Slivers aren't helpful. Picking away at some project or another for 10 or 20 minutes at a time won't get you into flow and it won't get you past the ugly.

Pg 103 - Most people get so little done because their available time gets cut up into pieces that are too small to use meaningfully.

Pg 104 - the lesson is clear: you won't get the important stuff in if you leave it for last. It never happens. Not with money, not with time.

Reference

• duChemin, D. (2020). Start Ugly: The Unexpected Path to Everyday Creativity. Craft & Vision Press.