Rushing to Cliches

It a natural human trait to want things to be done easily.  We search for the simplest, fastest way to do the dishes and still get them clean, we mow the lawn taking the least possible number of steps, we go to the grocery store as infrequently as we can, and if we have to, we dart in and out while touching only that which we've come for (this was true before Covid ~ perhaps we were practicing for these odd times).

Tasks and troublesome errands are best done efficiently.  Efficiency is the watch-word of business.  Efficiency creates more time, which allows us to do more tasks, which increases productivity and makes your boss happy (or you, if you're the boss).  There is an entire scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans, just to optimize human well-being and overall system performance, called ergonomics.  It is very interesting stuff.  It revolutionized industry in the 20th century.

Note, I call it a discipline.  A discipline is about training people to obey rules and use codes of behaviour; it even includes the use of punishment, such as suspending you, docking your pay and firing you, if you disobey the rules [the implementation of dominatrixes in order to maintain authority in your workplace is strictly dependent on the management].

Take note: efficiency, ergonomics and discipline is a great way to get things done.  However, each presupposes we know what the thing to be done is.  They presuppose a plan, a pre-existing design.  If we don't have a design, or even the inspiration for a design, then seeking the easiest way to move forward is a terrible strategy.

You are looking at a blank piece of paper, or a blank word document.  You have to write something.  You need some sort of adventure to run the party through.  This is a time to put all that stuff about hurrying along, finding the easiest way, applying efficiency and trying to contain yourself with discipline on a shelf.  If you look for the easiest way to create something, you're going to create something that is easily made.  And believe me, everything that can be made easily, has already been made, millions of times.

This is why cliches exist.  Writers and designers give themselves too little time, or some management official wants an idea in an unrealistic time frame ... or we're just too damn lazy to think for more than twenty minutes at a stretch ... and boom.  Out pops an idea that only leaps to the fore of our minds because we've witnessed that idea a million times.  But, in the desperation of finding something that can be invented in the short time we've got, it seems like a really good idea.

It isn't.  Stop rushing this.  Don't give yourself such a short time to come up with something.  Tell your boss you'll have an answer when you have one.

Creativity needs time.  It deserves time.  Give it what it deserves.