A Recipe For Creativity And For Getting Things Done

I always say that cooking is all about the ingredients. If you take the best ingredients of the highest quality, it almost doesn’t matter how you mix them up together, cook them, or arrange them. Even if you were to just blend them all together there’s a good chance a great smoothie will come out of that.

What really matters is the ingredients. That’s why it’s rewarding when there’s no food left at home but you’re still able to cook up a great meal just from leftovers and random ingredients. It’s because it’s a challenge to make something great without good ingredients and overcoming a challenge is always rewarding. While you can welcome this challenge from time to time, you’ll eat much better food (and get much better results) if you prepare your meals from really good ingredients.

So focusing on getting the best possible stuff when you shop is important.  Even more important though is knowing which ingredients to keep out of the house . For me that’s processed foods, refined sugars, and stuff like that.

Building a great business or product is a lot like cooking – it’s much easier if you use the right ingredients. The “recipe” itself matters less. Here’s what I mean:

• A good concept you care about is much more important than a detailed business plan with charts and tons of planning. Planning is about how you’re going to get where you want to get. A good concept is what will take you there and that plays a much bigger role.
• Freedom (for example in terms of schedule) is like olive oil. It’s absolutely essential. When, where, and how you’re going to work isn’t as important. Because that’s “recipe” stuff – not ingredients.
• Collaboration is a key ingredient. But how you manage and organize your project isn’t really important. Again that’s “how” – that’s “recipe” stuff.

Forget about organization, forget about tools, and forget about planning. Focus on good ingredients. I’m pretty sure that almost any mixture of solid ideas, free spirit, and collaboration can result in a great product.

Check out these related posts:

• Work when your productive
• It’s not just about the food
• The evil of multiple choice
• Planning really is guessing