Creation Versus Consumption

Lately I’ve been thinking about the amount of information I’ve been processing versus what I’ve been producing. As a communications consultant information processing comes with the territory so I have to be extra vigilant to ensure it doesn’t get out of hand. To that end, I subscribe to just one print magazine, get only basic cable, scan the online version of the New York Times each morning, and don’t own a smart phone (yet).

However, there are ebbs and flows to my sea of information and adding to my typical consumption pattern is the fact that I am currently enrolled in an online course involving several pages of paperwork each week, I am editing what started out as a 400 page book for a client, I am continuing the research of material for a book of my own, and I am reading no less than four books simultaneously, three on my Kindle and one from my local library.

All of which has served to largely stifle my own creative output, save for the periodic blog post such as this one. Speaking of blogs, I came across one the other day that captured my conundrum exactly. With a post titled “The Creative Equilibrium” at www.jamesshelley.net blogger James Shelley aptly describes my experience: “The more content I am consuming the less margin I have for creating.”