How to find the right balance between framework, structure, creativity and intuition

Balance between creativity and structure

Author

Jo Yang
February 18, 2024

If you're the type of person who can manage several projects at once, and have lots of ideas and ambitions, you're likely to find yourself scattered with so many obligations, possibilities and challenges that you either find yourself paralyzed (and procrastinating) wondering where to start, or ending up on your kneecaps with one intensity and exhaustion after another...

Many of you follow me on the subject of multipotentiality, organization, structure...

In this newsletter, I'm going to give you a way to structure yourself so that you don't burn out, while expressing your creativity and your need for expansion and variety!

I'm hosting a "Dragon Flow" immersion this weekend, so I'm sending out this newsletter just before I leave to host the second day :)

⭐Balancing structure, framework and creativity

Structure is often seen as a constraint, yet it allows just enough freedom to express creativity.

When lack of structure and vagueness create stress

Bad stress" is often associated with a lack of control in the face of an "overflow" that exceeds (or seems to exceed) your capacities.

You feel like you're not in control and you're just being put through the mill!

That's why being lost for direction or completely disorganized in the face of a mountain of tasks generates stress. You feel powerless, overwhelmed...

You've probably felt that pressure when you've got lots of things to do, it creates a mental load and you don't know where to start, like some kind of heavy fog!

If I'm keeping it simple here, the subject of stress is vast (I'll be tackling it in another newsletter, particularly in the good vs. bad stress balance), it is possible to reduce stress by planning ahead and regaining control over everyday things, including trivial acts like making your bed.

In fact, there's even a book by the same name: "Make Your Bed", explaining why big changes start with simple acts.

That's why :

"Discipline = Freedom”

One of my earlier articles talked about the myth of discipline and willpower.

We can't be "always on top!" If we become dependent on our states, we can't do anything... Therein lies the subtlety:

Discipline means doing what you have to do, with what you have today. You do it, you're present, give what you can give, whatever your motivation.

If you become a slave to your moods, your motivation and your environment, you'll never be free.

As long as you remain stuck in a "reactive" mode, or get bogged down in too many reflections that paralyze your choices and actions, you're depriving yourself of any expansion.

Do the best you can with what you've got each day, don't wait for motivation to get you moving, just keep moving (with a change of pace) and motivation will come.

And don't think that structure and framework mean you have to deny your creativity and intuition - quite the contrary... It gives them more power:

Intuition vs Frame, Structure vs Creativity

Intuition is often contrasted with structure, rationality with feeling... Yet both approaches work together:

  • Use creative flow to generate ideas and structure execution to bring them to life.

  • Organize yourself better, so you have less mental workload and more creative time.

  • Observe the facts while following your intuition when making decisions.

The balance between the two is top-notch!

I've been helping my customers structure their business for 10 years now, and the first comment that always comes back is: "Ah, but I can see so much more clearly, it's fluid!" that's the point 🌊!

Even though I'm super-square and structured (and my customers pay me for that) I'm still ultra-mega-intuitive!

Intuition is not opposed to framework and structure, just as creativity is not opposed to organization.

It's a balance to avoid ending up perched (outside the concrete and the material) doing nothing or too crushed to the ground (smashed to the ground?) by pressure and obligations, head in the handlebars...

I never cut my customers off from their creativity and intuition when I help them structure their business. On the contrary, the two must balance and harmonize.

Most of what I do, my projects, my ideas, my content... is based on intuition!

The framework and structure is what I'll bring next for the execution.

Intuition is always there, but its application and execution are structured.

My book Flowtasking started from an enormous intuition in a jacuzzi on the Ile de Ré in March 2023...

Its writing (super fluid) and publication before the summer was the framework and structure of what I had to say and transmit to materialize it.

Stay connected to your intuition, but act...with sense, grace and awareness!

This is how you evolve in the FLOW :

Embrace chaos and find your flow

Structuring and framing is not about controlling everything, it's about giving the right direction, the right structure, and remaining agile along the way.

As we all know, the best laid plans can be swept away, but at least you have a direction, some clarity, you can adapt quickly to take another path towards the course that remains clear!

I've been talking about "finding flow in chaos" for 4 years now, and here's how:

  1. Lay flat and get out everything you want to accomplish and have to do

  2. Prioritize and define the order of your different objectives

  3. Plan your next 90 days in detail

  4. Give yourself a daily rhythm of "discipline" to follow

  5. Take stock every day, week, month...

And of course, be as careful in recovery (rest) as you are in execution (action).