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Updated July 24, 2024Youβre reading an excerpt of Creative Doing, by Herbert Lui. 75 practical techniques to unlock creative potential in your work, hobby, or next career. Purchase now for instant, lifetime access to the book.
Obsession is one of the core aspects of craftsmanship. Detail, perfection, and progression are all fruits of obsession, an absolutist view on the correctness, integrity, or honesty of something. These traits often provide a breeding ground for great work.
βThe details are not detailsβthey make the product just like details make the architecture. The gauge of the wire, the selection of the wood, the finish of the castingsβthe connections, the connections, the connections,β writes designer and architect Charles Eames. You could also make the case that a creative work is nothing more than a sum of details.
Author Robert Caro writes of his obsession with research in Working: βWhatever it is that makes me do research the way I do, itβs not something Iβm proud of, and itβs not something for which I can take the creditβor the blame. It just seems to be a part of me.β
We, too, must cultivate an obsession with our work. For me, in my writing, itβs about rigorous fact-checking and correctness. Itβs about speaking in my voice, and doing the work it takes to figure out what that even means. Sometimes, itβs merely about a headline or, more likely, a ledeβwhere I constantly tweak it to try to make it better. Other times, itβs about finding a fact or verifying an apocryphal tale to support a point.
To practice your detail-orientation, try choosing one thing to focus on for thirty minutes.
Zooming in on a small part of your work is a great interpretation of this prompt. You could focus your attention on one particular corner, or a 1-inch by 1-inch, area of your artwork. Or, if youβre making a song, focus on nailing the lyrics in the opening verse, or the harmonies on the bridge.
In music or computer hardware, you could also choose to focus on the time, pace, and tempo of your work. The thing you choose to obsess over might never be noticed outright by your viewers, readers, or audienceβbut you will know. For example, Apple made the blinking light sleep indicators on its laptops mimic the average number of breaths a person takes. You probably never knew that, but the creators knew it would make a difference in the quality of what they made.
Obsession can create the energy that takes your work to the next level.
β¬ Or flip this prompt: Stop Obsessing
Early in my career, I worked at Lifehacker as a staff writer. I needed to write three short posts every day, and two long ones each week. My editors were giving me comments and suggestions on all of these posts, but I noticed a tension: as I accepted these changes and resolved comments, they would effectively disappear into a basement-equivalent dropdown menu, never to see the light of day again. I would lose the majority of the feedback that I received.
Later in my tenure there, I would start copying and pasting these comments down to try to make sense of them. I didnβt know it yet, but that was the beginning of a great idea. Several years later, this dormant idea emerged in full-form recently when I met with my writing coach Rachel Jepsen. I was discussing the challenge of noticing my own insights and patterns as a writer, when she suggested that I start logging them. It was a great ideaβbut how? So the next time I took in an editorβs feedback, I decided to set up a new, separate, doc. This would be my editing log. It would have three columns:
| Before | After | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The quota was taxing; I needed to write three short posts every day, and two long ones each week. | I needed to write three short posts every day, and two long ones each week. | Show, donβt tell. |