So much of our time as creatives and strategists is spent in front of a screen. I’ve found that one of the best ways for me to get unstuck in my strategic work is to step away from my desk and do something with my hands. This needs to be something totally unrelated to whatever creative problem I’m trying to solve at the moment.
Last week I spent an afternoon breaking down an old crate in the backyard and fishing out off-cuts of lumber collecting dust in my workshop to make a gardening bench with a little water basin for my son. I had this vision of a space for him to get his energy out while I’m puttering around outside on the weekends.
One of the goals with labor like this is to get out of my own head, so I didn’t spend a ton of time planning things. Instead I made some quick sketches in my notebook, watched a few youtube videos, and got to work.
Here’s the thing about building something with your hands: you quickly realise that it’s really just a never-ending series of questions where, unlike in my strategic work, your choices have immediate, concrete results.
Where do I want the basin to sit? Should I make it inset? How would I go about building an inner box to hold the basin? Do I have the lumber for that? Could I use nails here instead of short deck screws? What if I made the table two heights, one that he could grow into?
There weren’t any right or wrong answers here. Just lots of questions with a bunch of solutions at my disposal.
That’s what I find so invigorating about working with my hands: this process of question and answer forces my mind to expand, to think in new ways, to home in on what I actually want to accomplish. I’ve found that after working with my hands, I ask better strategic questions and more creative solutions in my work.
It doesn’t matter what you make. It could be a table, a blanket, or a herb garden. The point is the process.
Make something with your hands.