The universe is clearly trying to tell me something.
First my laptop died and is currently at the computer hospital. Please pray for it.
Then wild storms left my neighborhood without heat or electricity for two solid days.
I’m currently working on a laptop I dug out of a closet that is olde (with an ‘e’). Charging it at the library, which has a generator. And I’m reading before bed by candlelight — Little House on the Prairie style. As disruptive as it’s been, I noticed something curious.
Old laptops are a treasure trove of inspiration.
Folders with promising names like “WRITING” sit there, begging to be opened. The screensaver of your son’s over-the-fence home run floods your heart with a memory out of recent rotation. Meeting reminders that still somehow automatically pop up remind you of a difficult team member you navigated around.
It’s the antidote to the itty-bitty-shitty committee in your head with its loop of “you’re not doing enough!” Because just LOOK at all you’ve done! Exhibit A, your honor, of creativity, productivity, brilliance.
Hey, you, get off of my cloud.
The thing about the cloud is, it swallows so much of this whole. Decks. Presentations. Half-baked ideas.
From the folks who brought you inbox zero comes the Marie Kondo desktop. Save it to the cloud! Clearly uncluttered is best. You can always find it later. Except you don’t. Things we archive are unlikely to be mined for future inspiration. Out of sight, out of mind.
What if…?
What if every creative department in America had a “Bring Your Old Laptop to Work” Day? Everyone would spend the morning in creative excavation and would share their top 3 finds in the afternoon. Who’s with me?
Until next time, remember that culture is the new creativity.
Love this Kat! I recently did the same with some old external drives. I have worked on SO MANY BRANDS, in SO MANY INDUSTRIES. SO MANY ideas and creative decks. Emailed the best ones (never produced) to my olde (with an e) copywriter partners: "Read this brilliant writing! You wrote this! It is brilliant!"
Back in the days of job jackets (ha!), I used to keep a physical manilla folder in my desk titled "dead ideas." Every once in a while, when I needed to tap into some self-inspiration (or righteous rage), I'd pull out the folder and reminisce about some truly awesome—and, admittedly, some less awesome—concepts that a risk-averse client quickly shut down.
This post made me realize that I don't do that nearly as much anymore, partially because I don't have a physical folder to thumb through. And partially, I think, because the pace we're working at these days makes it feel difficult to stop, pause, and revisit the smart places we've already been.
I think this is a practice I'd like to get back to.