Keep your inbox full

  • Not your email inbox— I mean your non-urgent ‘to dos’, your project ideas, your RSS feeds, newsletters, unread articles and bookmarks.
  • Thinking of each entry not as a requirement, a demand for your time and energy, but as a possibility, an optional next step, or an opportunity.
  • what’s the fear - being left with unanswered questions and unexplored paths? I for one want to die with things left to do, it is inherent to life
  • So choosing to keep a full inbox means you never actually need to empty it
  • It’s been useful to see my many saved resources as a world of possibility and not a checklist to systematically crunch through
  • Came to this first through thinking about ‘demand avoidance’ or ‘desire for autonomy’ in the PDA (autism) profile
  • On considering different scopes and scales of ‘demand’ and how to lessen the effect of real and perceived demands that cause me distress, I found this area of ‘inspiration hoarding’ to be one that I could easily reframe.
  • Was reminded of the subject by ‘how real people process notes’
  • It’s probably a different case if physical books are taking up your space or cluttering your vision.
    • I limit this by using libraries and passing on finished books.
    • Physical notes and other ‘inspiring’ objects can often be photographed or digitised, but this doesn’t always trigger what it does to hold an object.
    • Dependant on space, many have resource hoards hidden from everyday view.
    • Many find it more inspiring to be surrounded by their inspiring objects
    • A good case for separation of spaces for synthesising/creating/working/thinking and for relaxing/living/healing/sleeping to place the psychological burden of objects in a different space and time
    • Inspiration comes from literally everywhere and your everyday spaces can become the object of creative burden - not always a clear cut separation