Previously, on my note: "People often think creativity is about generating ideas. but the longer I work in the industry, the more I think creativity is actually about reducing decisions cause the best creative systems I’ve seen don’t remove originality; they remove unnecessary thinking.
naming files, version control, asset libraries, brand guidelines, templates, checklists…yes, everything requires a bit of time but none of these make the work less creative. they simply protect your energy for decisions that actually matter.
what if…creative block isn’t always the absence of ideas… maybe…it’s decision fatigue wearing a different outfit."
After coming up with that post, I ended up staying up late cause the idea seems so…crazy. Whether it’s true or not, I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night without trying to find out more about it.
People, including me, often describe creative block as if creativity simply disappears. As if ideas wake up one morning, pack their bags, and decide to leave—or at least that’s how I feel.
But nowadays, I’m starting to see another perspective:
The longer I work in creative fields, the more I believe creative block is less about imagination and more about bandwidth.
Because if you pay attention, ideas don’t really stop appearing.
They’re just competing against everything else.
Deadlines.
Unread messages.
File management.
Naming conventions.
Version control.
Client revisions.
“What should I tackle first?”
“Where did I save that asset?”
“Is this the final file or the final_final_v3 file?”
Tiny decisions.
Individually, they seem harmless.
Collectively, they quietly consume the same mental energy we expect creativity to use.
I find it interesting that people often look for inspiration when they feel blocked (again, me included).
They change environments.
Watch films.
Listen to podcasts.
Go for walks.
And at least for me, I feel like those things help me get inspired, but there’s a difference between getting inspired and actually lifting the creative block so I begin to wonder…while those things absolutely help, what if we’re actually solving the wrong problem?
Maybe what we’re calling “creative block” is actually cognitive overload.
Not because we lack ideas.
But because our brain is busy keeping track of twenty unfinished tabs.
Okay, let’s first start small so I don’t accidentally overload you ( lol, get the pun? ) with information like I’m doing to myself right now.
What is cognitive overload ?
Cognitive overload is a psychological state that occurs when the amount of incoming information or simultaneous demands exceeds your brain’s working memory capacity, resulting in a breakdown of your ability to process, perform, or retain that information effectively. sounds familiar?
There’s a concept in psychology called decision fatigue: the more decisions we make throughout the day, the harder it becomes to make good ones later.
What’s fascinating is that creativity relies on the exact same resource.
Attention.
aka every unnecessary decision steals a tiny bit of energy from the decisions that actually matter.
I’ve started noticing this in my own workflow.
The days I feel “most creative” usually aren’t the days I have the most inspiration.
They’re the days where my environment asks the least from me.
My folders are organized.
My references are easy to find.
The brief is clear.
The next step is obvious.
Ironically, the less I have to think about the process, the more room my mind has to think about the work.
This completely changed the way I look at systems.
For a long time, I thought systems existed to increase efficiency ( more like to make me suffer HAHAH ).
Now I think they exist to protect creativity:
Every template removes a decision.
Every documented workflow preserves mental energy.
Every checklist saves attention for something more meaningful.
A good system doesn’t make creative work robotic. It simply prevents your brain from spending its best hours deciding where to click next.
Which I understand, contradicts with the usual image of a creatives where we imagine scattered notebooks, hundreds of browser tabs, half-finished sketches, ideas scribbled on napkins, projects started before the pervious one ends ( all true, totally not speaking from my own experience whatsoever ).
Creatives are often associated with chaos.
They’re the people who challenge assumptions, experiment without guarantees, move quickly between ideas, and constantly create new possibilities. Their minds wander. They connect unrelated concepts. They question what already exist.
And perhaps that’s exactly why the stereotype exists;
From the outside, creativity looks messy.
But I’m starting to think the mess isn’t where creativity comes from.
It’s simply the byproduct of exploration.
The exploration itself is valuable.
The constant branching of ideas is valuable.
The curiosity is valuable.
What becomes exhausting is when that same unpredictability extends beyond the ideas and into the environment that supports them.
If every file is hard to find, every process has to be reinvented, every project starts from zero, and every decision requires fresh mental energy; then the brain is no longer exploring—it’s managing chaos. and those are two very different things.
Maybe that’s why the most creative people I’ve met are often surprisingly structured.
Not because structure creates creativity.
But because structure creates space.
It clears enough mental clutter for curiosity to wander again.
And curiosity, more often than inspiration, is where great ideas begin.
So perhaps creative block isn’t always the absence of ideas.
Maybe it’s the accumulation of invisible friction.
The thousand tiny decisions we never notice making.
The mental tabs we forgot to close.
The processes we never questioned.
Maybe the solution isn’t to force another idea.
Maybe it’s to remove one unnecessary decision.
Because sometimes the most creative thing we can design…
is the system that protects our ability to create in the first place.
But that’s just my opinion for now. I might still agree with this in the next few years, or I might come back to debunk this theory but either way; still learning. always curious.
– a curious creative
Penny for your thoughts? 🪙
Leave a Reply