A Joosr Guide to Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull

Just like time or money, your creativity is a precious resource that needs nurturing. Like any resource, this means you can’t just leave it alone and expect it to be there forever. It takes careful cultivation and the right environment to keep it flowing, as well as a concentrated effort to make sure nothing stands in the way of your creative process.

At Pixar, they don’t try to predict future changes; they simply make sure they’re able to handle them as they come. For this, they use “mental models,” or imaginary visualizations of their work situation, to create a clearer picture of how they’re going to handle things.

Working simply to avoid failure is a dangerous motivator that can take precedence in your work and make you forget why you began the project in the first place. Accepting failure as an inevitable step in development will help you to harness it as part of the creative process.

Perhaps the most influential way Pixar promotes candor is with a monthly meeting known as “The Braintrust.” The Braintrust is a group of select Pixar leaders who regularly meet to provide honest feedback designed to find and remove mediocrity. In these meetings, the push for candor must be constant, as it is often human nature to want to avoid offending someone or looking stupid.

To sustain a truly healthy creative environment, you need to address the problems that are holding you back head-on. What sets Pixar apart from other creative studios is their ability to do this on a regular basis. They find the impediments hidden in their daily operation and work to correct or remove them, preserving the perfect environment for what they do.

Research trips are great for inspiration, and even better for staying original. These allow a person to generate allnew information about whatever they’re trying to evoke, which is better than referencing because it steers things away from being derivative. These can be as simple as a walk in the park to get inspiration for a new color palette, or as in-depth as a trip to Cuba to learn about the culture.

Pixar’s culture is known for being open and fun, but what makes them successful isn’t the dance classes or the lunch spaces. It’s not beanbags and toys on desks. It’s a commitment to protecting the creativity of every employee who sits down at a desk to work.

They fired executives who were causing problems and refused to be flexible, gave Disney’s employees more freedom to experiment and work together, and encouraged candid communication between leadership and management.

Mindsets are difficult to change, and habits are hard to break, but, with time, positive change can happen anywhere.

when deadlines are the main motivation in your work, it means creating a quality product isn’t. This kind of mis-motivation saps a person’s creative energy, leaving them creating poor, incomplete work.