Creativity - Abhishek Chakraborty

The Problem is Not the Problem

A lot of us waste our time worrying about specific problems — how to deliver a project, how to get funding, how to crack an interview — whereas the real problem is we don’t know how to think about the problem correctly.

The Slow Hunch: Why All Eureka Moments Are Lies

Snap discoveries based on intuition—as dramatic as they sound—are rarities. All hunches that turn into important innovations unfold over much longer time frames.

The Perks of Being a Late Bloomer

Most of us aren’t very good at what we do because we settle too early. And once we settle, we don’t switch. That’s not really a smart way to make a career, or in better words, find your calling.

Metalearning: The Essential First Step of Learning That Nobody Taught You

Metalearning is the process of figuring out how to learn a particular subject based on how knowledge is structured and organised. If learning was a building, metalearning helps you figure out how to reach the top floor—whether to take the stairs, or the elevator, or scale the walls like Spider-Man.

The Adjacent Possible: When Innovation is Just Waiting to Happen

Had Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim started YouTube in 1995 instead of 2005, would it have been equally successful? Why did Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine prove to be such a short-term dead end, whereas his Difference Engine went into mass production only a couple of decades later?

Make Your Failures Insignificant

Most of us aren’t willing to fail. We may understand intellectually that we’ll fail once in a while if we are trying something new, but most of us aren’t ready to take that punch to the gut. The paradox of success is that everybody wants to be successful, but nobody wants to fail to get there.

Constraints: How to Bend Space And Time to Solve Problems Creatively

The biggest hurdle any creative has to overcome is starting out. To overcome this, we need constraints. But arbitrary constraints—that are set for the sake of setting constraints—are useless. We have to learn how to choose the appropriate constraint based on the creative goals we are pursuing.

Anchor Mechanics: A Framework to Ruthlessly Prioritise Creativity Over Fixed Plans

While pursuing creative endeavours, it’s impossible to follow any fixed plan—be it while writing an essay, or building a startup. Creatives endeavours are bound to be chaotic. There’s a lot of figuring out to be done on the way.