A year of creativity, by Jacob and Unerman

Thursday April 9, 2026

This book has 52 weekly chapters, each with an approach for being creative. I read (very nearly) one per week in 2025. They remind me somewhat of my Thinking Cards, and prompted me to finally get a set of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies as well. The biggest concept for all of these is just to do something different, to get out of your usual groove, to try to be creative. It's nice that creativity can respond to effort.

What even is creativity? I think it's to do with taking steps that other people haven't taken, going somewhere others haven't gone. Taking more steps, taking steps that other people haven't yet or couldn't take, maybe using knowledge or experiences unique to you. And then you get to that result, that success, that product that stands on its own, and if you don't show the steps that led to it, it looks like something that just appeared out of the blue.

cover

The chapter titles are sometimes quite opaque, but here they are, 13 each for spring, summer, fall, and winter:

  1. Push the idea until it breaks
  2. Start a revolution
  3. Use new
  4. Exaggerate
  5. Be brave
  6. Allow time for shoots to flourish
  7. Double the resources available
  8. Prompt the unconscious
  9. Change direction
  10. Make it iconic
  11. Give it purpose
  12. Random link
  13. Spring forward and be more dog
  14. Indulge your gut instinct
  15. Re-express with a different language
  16. Be more pirate
  17. Be bored
  18. Give into your worst impulse
  19. What won’t you do? And why?
  20. Do nothing
  21. Use an old idea
  22. Work against your better judgement
  23. Build back better
  24. What would someone else say?
  25. Take a trip
  26. Be more Wimbledon
  27. Organize for medium-term success
  28. Make it famous, fast
  29. Build communities
  30. Make the team happy
  31. Be generous
  32. Build bridges
  33. Make people’s lives better
  34. Deliver outstanding teamwork
  35. What is missing?
  36. Harvest
  37. Listen hard
  38. Do things in the wrong order
  39. What would your worst enemy do?
  40. Uproot and destroy
  41. Burn bridges
  42. Go outside
  43. Deliver long-term success
  44. How can you get people to want much more?
  45. Plan to get it up and running in six weeks
  46. Spend a million
  47. Be extravagant
  48. Strip it back
  49. Quick win
  50. Push the idea until it scares you
  51. Give the past a vote (but not a veto)
  52. Hibernate