Play isn’t the opposite of serious work. It’s where serious work gets its best ideas.

Play is where you try things without the cost of being wrong, which is exactly the condition good ideas need to survive their first hour. Serious mode narrows you, because every move gets measured against whether it will work, and fragile ideas never pass that test early. Messing about looks unproductive from outside, and it is where a lot of the useful material comes from.

Give yourself one clearly pointless session this week. No goal, nothing to show, nobody to please. Keep whatever surprises you and let the rest go.