Together versus alone

I’m a huge proponent of having time to work in quiet. I love deep work, despise useless meetings, and in general try to shape my life around having time to think and work on things that I find challenging and satisfy my curiosity.

I’ve wasted not insignifcant periods of my life sitting in meetings that could have been a Slack message, could have been pre-recorded and listened to at 2x speed, could have included far less people, or could have been shorter.

However, there are times when working with someone makes all the difference. If I’m designing a new app flow I’ll bring my previous experience, the current problem we’re trying to solve, and focus on exploring the space as a whole. These are things I do solo. But it doesn’t stop there. At various stages of the project I’ll want to talk to potential users, collaborate on the problem with my team, and in general make sure I’m not creating a solution to a non-existent problem.

When the right elements are in place collaboration becomes magical. Recently I had a problem I was working on that felt a bit like spinning wheels. A few minutes talking to a colleague completely unblocked me and moved the app forward.

My ideal for creativity is periods of quiet intersperced with collaborative focal points that help move the project forward.