Use Your Hands —Why you need to hold on to some analog tools

Day 51 / 365

One of the things that I learned from the book Steal Like An Artist, is the importance of building things with our hands, in this Digital age.

Most of the stuff we do these days involves computers and buttons and screens. We have a piece of glass separating us and our creations. In contrast to that, making a painting, or writing something on a piece of paper is a much more immersive experience. It evokes many senses, the touch of the pen or the brush, the feeling of friction with the paper, and the smell of the ink.

Computers are not great for generating ideas

We are extremely still when we are working on a computer. We are mostly just working with our heads. Computers and other digital tools are good for editing and polishing our ideas. But they are not so great at generating ideas. To be creative, it's not just enough to use our heads, we need to use our whole bodies.

Our nervous system is a 2-way street. It’s not just our brain that talks to our bodies, our bodies can talk back to our brains as well. By using tools that allow us to engage our whole bodies in the creative process, we can leverage this to come up with better ideas.

Analog and Digital Workstations

The book suggests that if we have the space, we should create 2 different workstations, an Analog one and a Digital one. The Digital station would have your computer, iPad, and all other electronic tools. Fill the Analog station with all the stationary that you can find — Pencils, pens, colors, scrap papers, and notebooks.

The Analog station is your playground. Scribble, draw, paint, cut pieces of paper, and paste things together. Spread things out, move things around.

Once you start getting your ideas, move to the Digital station and start editing and publishing them. If you feel stuck, move back to your analog station and play.

Although I couldn’t find a separate desk, I have tried to create an analog station for myself using an old bedtable. The idea and rough outline of this very blog came on that table in my notebook, and I moved to my PC soon to write and publish it.