Creativity is more important than ever. What will you do today?
In a world that seems to have gone mad recently, creativity has become more important than ever. Not just “arts”, but making, doing, sharing, writing, hacking, teaching, growing, mending and so many other things are creative endeavours.
But it’s sometimes hard to recognise your creativity. It’s easy to get stuck in a creative rut. We need inspiration and encouragement.
Welcome to Today I…
So today, I’m opening to you my latest side-project: “Today I…“. It’s really simple: you register, and every day you are encouraged – by a daily reminder email – to record your creativity for the day. The log is private to you (well, I as the site owner can access it, but I promise to only do this if I really need to), and the whole thing has been made as simple as possible.
The email is a nudge to be creative and to record your creativity. But the system also hopes to inspire by offering you different sorts of creative action to take. If you’re a maker why not try writing? Or perhaps you’re good at giving, but find it hard to practically help others? There’s always a nudge to do something different.
I hate online marketing speak, but I’m hoping you’ll join me: Sign up and get started now
Perhaps you have some questions about why this thing exists or is what it is. Well, here’s some background.
The story behind “Today I…”
A good long while ago, a friend of mine convinced me that I was creative when previously I had flat out denied it. This has been a profound change in my life. I’ve come to see that creativity is part of being human, and that though the word “creative” is often applied to visual media, it’s far, far broader.
Last year I gave a 10 minute “Lightning talk” at a conference in Brighton about this which, if you have time, you can watch below.
Another person I know used to have a small community of people who posted to social media every day with something they were thankful for using the hashtag “#thankyoutoday”. I loved this idea and still go through phases of trying to continue this as a tradition.
After the “You are creative” talk, I combined these two ideas – discovering a broader creativity, and a daily habit of remembering – and I started Tweeting under the hashtag “#TodayIMade” in an attempt to recognise my own daily creativity.
“Today I…” is an extension of that idea.
But, it’s hardly a complicated thing?
Well, yeah. At the moment “Today I…” doesn’t do much. It’s very simple. Technically a daily log like this is quite easy to make. Go make your own if you want to!
But it’s also, I hope, well thought out. I’ve tried to make it as easy to use as possible, and there are plans to make it even easier and better. But it’s reached “good enough”, and I’m hoping some people will try it out.
I also hope I can make it fun, by adding quotes, inspiration, and an encouraging tone of voice into the reminder emails. They may even suggest different sorts of actions based on your history. And I may add some clever post-to-social-media functions too.
It’s broken/annoying/doesn’t work…help!
It needs some kind of help contact for sure. I’ll add that when I’ve worked out the best way to do it that doesn’t involve my inbox being flooded with spam. But you can always contact me here in the comments or using my contact form. Or you can Tweet – if that’s your thing – @today_i_team where I’ll also make product announcements.
I’m also happy to take suggestions for improvement and ideas for new types of creative action if you think a blue button is missing!
Thanks for reading and taking part…if you do.
Now let’s go make stuff!