Using the Seasons to Harness Creativity

I have often joked that one of my hobbies is acquiring new hobbies. Beyond hobbies, this also extends to new projects and creative pursuits. When I latch onto a new idea, a vicious cycle begins, and I wanted to document that here so I can continue to remind myself each time it happens.

On a raging dopamine high that often lasts around 2 weeks I proudly proclaim to my wife and anyone else that will listen that I'm starting a new project that could lead to the next chapter of my life. I love to list all the reasons why the new thing is the perfect fit for me and is going to lead to greatness. Facebook marketplace sellers are visited, Amazon buttons are clicked and stuff starts arriving in my house - tools, materials. All vital parts to this creative journey.

When I’m not broadcasting why this is the next big thing to other poor souls, I’m soaking up related knowledge—watching YouTube videos in the bath, devouring articles and books on the subject, and following leading voices in the field on social media. I feel like there’s an endless depth to explore, and I can’t get enough. Immersing myself in this rich, primordial soup of ideas, I absorb it all like a compressed sponge, expanding with every drop until I realise I should probably put my phone down and try to sleep.

Then another two weeks later after jumping in and starting work, I've discovered it's actually quite hard and more complicated than the video I'd been playing in my head. "I've a lot of other people doing it and they're so ahead of me."

I've made nothing of any substance other than a half-assed experiment. I've got the ick. Other areas of my life have begun to demand my focus and I am no longer making time to work on my new endeavour.

A week later, a layer of dust has formed on the equipment. If it's not big enough to hide then others have noticed. People can see the neglected workhorse I built to carve wooden bowls on in the garden. Every day, my wife sees the 49-key midi keyboard, audio interface complete with microphone and Korg drum pad on my desk and yet hears only deafening silence when asking about the music I planned to make with it. I deflect any conversation about the new venture, fully aware that I've compiled another starter-kit for a new hobby that I will hoard and try my best not to look at.

The neglected carving workhorse

And there's many more bundles of project starter-kits around the house. Materials and tools that would allow someone to create something meaningful. There's enough camping and hiking equipment to sustain a venture to the North Pole. All the bike-packing bags you'd need to ride from the UK to Cambodia (plus bike). If I died tomorrow and family had to sort through my belongings they'd find them hidden in cupboards, in storage boxes, in outbuildings and sheds.

Fortunately, I am still very much alive, but their existence brings me great shame.

Shame in that they represent that time in my life where I told everyone I was going to do something I did not. Shame that I cumulatively spent a decent chunk of money acquiring said tools, materials and equipment. Shame in the knowledge that someone really deserving could use that starter kit to create something meaningful. And despite wanting desperately to nourish my soul with acts of creation, a shame that I once again, can't trust in my ability to get anything done outside of work imposed on me by others.

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I've been asked by more than a few people if I have ADHD and while I haven't sought an official diagnosis, I have been learning about the condition and have begun view my behaviour through that lens.

And through this lens, I am trying to change things - firstly, by replacing the shame with self-compassion.

For instance, my surges of enthusiasm are important signals for self-discovery. The fact I'm drawn to idea of producing bowls out of the wood that is abundant around me here in the countryside using hand tools isn't without merit - there's a signal in what my brain is telling me when I get excited about something that if followed, will push me towards a life of fulfilment and purpose.

Surviving in this world with ADHD has its challenges, especially when trying to interface with societal systems; school or work in particular. Enduring an education system designed to specialise people and corporate structures that hire people into silos to perform specific functions, I have had a lifelong feeling that I was always a square peg being forced (at school), or potentially forcing myself (at work) through a round hole.

Looking back, I am fortunate that my insatiable curiosity and desire to make has led me to be a person that can flex in their abilities. My previous jobs involved a combination of creativity, technology, making with the benefit of a relatively high level of agency - Creative Technologist at Anomaly and Prototype Developer at Twitter to name a couple. The jobs themselves were always part of a companies innovation efforts, not central to the day-to-day operations of the business. With that potential for creativity and blue sky thinking came instability. They were unstable roles that could be dissolved if the company found itself needing some extra cash. But I managed to make a living, and now, given that the rapidly evolving technology of AI will soon blow a hole in the world of work and make a lot of specialist vocations obsolete, I am grateful for staying as true as I could to the generalist way of being.

But those qualities won't automatically protect me or lead me to a purposeful life…

I framed my 2025 goals broadly as to "become a king and less of a king-maker".

I have reached a time in my life where instead of selling other's ideas, I'm ready to sell ideas of my own. To do that; to produce anything meaningful for myself, as opposed to a client, I will also need to further develop my ability to focus under my own volition.

Structure: A Key Ingredient

Productivity systems are important to any creative pursuit, and particularly for those exhibiting ADHD-like tendencies. As is learning how to work with your own personal rhythms of productivity - creative work requires inspiration, clarity, production and rest. We need to eat and look after our bodies also. Just take a look at these routines of famous creative people.

I already use todo-lists via Todoist app which help in the day-to-day running of my life. I’ve used Trello with Kanban-style "To Do / Doing / Done" lists to manage some projects, but I've tended not to timebox my activities. Writing this, I'm wondering if it's because of a historically bad relationship with deadlines developed by my homework performance at school. I've certainly never implemented a set of macro constraints that help me manage my personal creative output.

But this year I'm determined to work with the natural rhythms that govern my energy. I want to create. To set and fulfil self-initiated projects. I want to revisit each of those starter kits and use them to produce artefacts. Artefacts I can point at that justify the investment in all the tools and materials. Artefacts that generate a practice that leads to further self-understanding and growth towards whatever my brain has been telling me is exciting.

We Evolved with the Seasons

All the above has evidenced that I need structure to reach my goals.

In the spirit of rewilding the mind I look to Mother Nature for inspiration. Her structure comes in the form of seasons. Seasons came before man-made paradigms of time - we evolved with the rhythms of the seasons.

Our ancestors would have hunkered down during the cold and dark winter, probably using as little physical energy as they could to ensure their food stores weren't depleted too quickly. It was a time for reflection, storytelling, being with friends and family, doing small things within a small area.

The brightness of spring would bring new energy, opportunity in cultivating the land, the potential of sowing seeds. Plans and preparation, strengthening, bringing clarity.

Summer, a time of warmth, light and abundance. Creativity, play, celebration, fuelled by all the energy brought by harvesting and feasting on all the fresh juicy fruits and veg grown under a beaming sun. Action; lots of it! The lines blur between outside and in. Longer days, shorter nights. The possibility of extended explorative journeys, bigger projects, greater connectedness.

As the nights shortened and leaves withered, autumn brought the sight of maturing winter squashes. With their tough skins these plants are designed to last and sustain the life around them over a longer period as fresher vegetation dies off thanks to falling temperatures and longer nights. They reminded our ancestors that now was a time to slow down, collect and organise resources, tie up loose ends ahead of another cycle of scarcity brought by the looming winter.

But Then We Changed Our Environments

Our ability to wield fire and then electricity offered a way to change our environments so we were able to live less at the mercy of the seasons. It was immediately obvious what advantages having heat and light offered to domestic living, and eventually corporate enslavement via shift work. But in doing that, we began to cut ties with rhythms that governed our ways of living for all the many years prior. I wonder if the relatively slow speed of our evolution ever caught up? While we expect the same level of productivity from ourselves year round, nothing in nature operates like this. Leaves bud in spring, sprout in summer, wither in autumn and fall in winter.

And while I enjoy building things with code, when the sun is shining it's hard to want to stare at a screen. Instead I want to be hiking up a mountain, riding my bike, tending to the garden, or making wooden bowls outside.

So would an approach to work that considered the seasons provide the structure that could help me harness my potential and chase my many interests in a way that resulted in fulfilment rather than shame?

A Seasonal Model for Creative Work

It sounds simple, and obvious, but when I thought about dividing my creative output up by seasons it brought a strange sense of relief.

While I do have ongoing commitments that are driven by external stakeholders, I'm going to challenge myself to give me a single focus per season.

The Gregorian calendar doesn't directly align with seasons so I'll be using the equinox/solstice dates to help me section the seasonal sprints:

• Spring: Starts around 20 March (Spring Equinox).

• Summer: Starts around 21 June (Summer Solstice).

• Autumn: Starts around 23 September (Autumn Equinox).

• Winter: Starts around 21 December (Winter Solstice).

Each season is roughly 3 months. Given that it's 10th January as I write this, we're a bit under 1/3 into Winter. Hard to believe given our warming climate, I know.

But before I rant on that, what sort of projects would suit each season, and how might I best align them to my numerous hobbies/existing starter-packs?

Winter

As mentioned, reflection, storytelling, being with friends and family, doing small things within a small area. It's hard to be outside and although it's potentially a tenuous link I'm going to equate this with working on my computer. I've been developing an interest in building things using AI and want to understand it further. With a prototyping project already started I'll be working on that for the remainder of this winter.

Spring

Plans and preparation, strengthening, bringing clarity. Feral is the name of my company, but it's also a way of thinking. I've been wanting to rebuild the Feral website, which is super simple right now, and add more content. I've always wanted to run the website from home on my own web server so I can do cool things like power it using solar energy. Of course, I have all the parts needed including a solar panel, solar controller, Raspberry Pi for a server and a car battery as the energy storage.

I want to double down on writing in spring, which I also find to be useful as a tool for mental clarity and defining purpose.

Rather than a single project, spring is going to be a set of projects under one mission which is to strengthen and bring clarity to Feral.

Summer

The time to be outdoor and enjoy expending lots of energy! I do already have plans to tour France in my van this summer, but creatively I want to put the wood carving kit I've acquired to use and produce a collection of bowls using wood from trees that have fallen in the storms this autumn/winter. I would love if this culminated in a mini exhibition, or even became part of a group!

A few screenshots from videos of my initial carving experiments

Autumn

Getting back to activities that are cosy. I've really wanted to produce ambient/glitchy electronic music for as long as I can remember. I really do have a midi controller on my desk which is basically a piano-keyboard that doesn't make sound but plugs into your computer to trigger sounds in software running on that. There’s also a Korg drum pad on the little table underneath.

I've owned a midi controller at various stages of my life since I was a teenager and tragically have never finished a single song. Without a doubt, I have to build on what I already know about Ableton Live (complicated music software), music theory and produce an album this autumn.

And what a tactile season for inspiration; for sure will take a mic out into nature and incorporate field recordings from the season into what I make.

Conclusion

The idea of focusing on one project per season is filling me with excitement. There's something powerful about the idea of giving yourself license to mentally step into the world of wood carving or music making for 3 months. There's a little trepidation that I get distracted or something positive happens that changes things, but at least there's a plan. Does it really need to be linked to the seasons to work? Well, it’s worth a punt, and time will tell.

I know that to reach these goals I'll have to make choices about what I'll sacrifice in order to pursue them. But short term sacrifices equals long term gains - that feeling of completing a creative project is incredible and I look forward to more of it.