Those who are the most creative need to cultivate the most discipline.

As the third employee and head of product at a startup, I'm primarily responsible for creating the vision, mission, and user experience of a wide-open concept.

There is no clear right answer, but it's my job to create one.

Creativity is the use of the imagination or the constructing of original ideas. It's equal parts systematization to create reproducible results, non-obvious problem solving and making esoteric connections where there don't seem to be any.

Applied creativity is a fickle flower and it only blooms where the soil is favorable.

Consistent creativity requires the discipline to create the absence of distraction

As a general rule of thumb, subtract before you add.

We have simple brains that get overloaded easily. If you're smart, this applies especially to you.

It's easy to know what a distraction is, but it's difficult to stop acting on it.

Useful creativity requires the discipline to reflect and create.

Once your mind is clear of cluttering inputs, you have the space to reflect.

To reflect is to process the inputs so that you can output something unique.

Creating something good from scratch is hard. It means you had the discipline to wrestle long enough to understand what the right problem is to solve. It also probably means that you carved a new path to figuring out a solution.

If you created something good once, that's fantastic.

Now how do you do it again, on command?

You have to get good at building a very nuanced process.

Applied creativity is one of the most fulfilling types of work a human can do.

It's simultaneously soft and hard.

It pushes you to be a well-rounded, high-agency thinker who can have original thoughts and outputs consistently.