Don’t forget to play. Some of your best work will come from messing around.

Play is not the opposite of serious work. It is where the unplanned combinations happen, because anything done with a goal attached gets filtered by whether it will work, which quietly rules out the strange attempt that would have gone somewhere. With no stakes, you try things you could never have justified. That is a production method rather than a break from one.

Give yourself an hour this week with no outcome attached and nobody to show. Follow what is interesting instead of what is useful, and keep whatever surprises you.