One way to assess the settings on our creative endeavors (professional, hobbyist, experimental, or any other commitment level) is to think in terms of boxes and tools.
In this context, our boxes are the containers in which we put the stuff we make and in which we create.
In some cases these boxes will be literal spaces in which we work, in which we put our work when it’s done, and in which we display or sell our work.
In others the metaphorical boxes will be the publications, websites, brands, and mediums that house the words we string together, the graphics we design, the spreadsheets we orchestrate, or the videos we produce.
Our tools are the things that help us make the work we put in these boxes.
These can also be tangible objects—paint brushes, typewriters, slide-rules or baking sheets or table saws—but they can also be digital objects like software suites, search engines, AI-based platforms, or cognitive enhancements like systems and habits.
Whatever their corporeality (or lack thereof), these tools are effort-enhancers, leverage-augmenters, and force-amplifiers if we allow them to be so.
We become more capable when we use well-honed tools skillfully, so the right tools and a fair amount of practice with them can shape the work we do while also determining what sorts of work we’re capable of doing (our table saws are unlikely to help us paint portraits, and we probably won’t be able to produce videos with a typewriter).
Our boxes, on the other hand, delineate the scope, scale, and structure of the spaces in which we do said work and through which we’re able to maintain, archive, and transmit that work for our own future enjoyment, reference, or remixing and for similar utility by others.
These containers not only inform how much and what sorts of work we can manage, then, but also how far that work will be broadcast, what shape it’ll be in when it arrives, how it will be perceived and categorized by folks on the other end of its transmission, and how great or small its shelf-life will be.
I find that checking in on these sorts of assets periodically helps me make iterative changes to my making-things setup (my tools and boxes), and that process almost always points me toward new, interesting ways of producing, arranging, broadcasting, and maintaining things—some of which may ultimately suit my purposes better than my existing setup (and in some cases it points me toward entirely new ways of defining my purposes).
Holidays are opportune moments for this sort of self-exploration because they serve as a chronological mile-marker at which we can stop and assess all aspects of our lives, comparing where we are now to where we were the previous year, and setting goals for where we’d like to be next time around.
Culturally agreed-upon moments of significance aren’t necessary for this type of self-inventory, though.
Checking in semi-regularly, whenever is most convenient (and meaningful) to us, individually, makes it less likely that we’ll fall into rhythms and routines that don’t serve us, and more likely that we’ll keep our tools honed, our boxes right-sized, and our acts of creation fulfilling for everyone involved.
If you found value in this essay, consider buying me a coffee :)