Okay, confession time: I am a big-time planner. I like to have everything figured out. No surprises, please 🙂

But when it comes to sensemaking (which is an important personal knowledge management skill), and ultimately, creativity as the final stage in the Creativity Flywheel, the path forward isn't always obvious. Life often takes twists and turns that you don't expect or see coming, and honestly, that's where we often encounter the very best stuff in life.

But when that happens, we need to be able to reorient quickly, which is why it's important when you are creating that you bring a compass, but not a blueprint.

When you have a blueprint, you tend to get too attached to the details of the plan. But you can't see the forest through the trees because you're so focused on those individual details. And I've learned the hard way over the years not to get too attached to the plan. As much as my personality would like to know everything ahead of time, it's just not necessary to make progress. In fact, needing to know all the details can actually keep you from even getting started.

It turns out that all you really need to know is the direction that you're going and the next step to take. As long as you stay curious and keep moving in the right direction, eventually, you'll get to your destination.

In other words, you need a compass.

If you get skilled in following the compass, you will end up at your destination. Even if you can't see it from where you start, you'll get there eventually. I learned this when I was a kid growing up in the Boy Scouts, and one of the things they taught was how to use a compass.

I remember when they took us into the woods, gave us a compass, and then we had to find our own way back to camp. Once you get over the feeling of having no idea where you are, it's actually not that difficult because the compass made it pretty easy. Once you had some coordinates (or at least the direction that you were supposed to go), then you simply had to plot your course and follow the arrow. You just put one foot in front of the other, and eventually, you'd get to the destination.

Occasionally, there would be obstacles that you would have to go around, like a pond or a lake. When that happened, you'd have to pick a point on the horizon and move toward it as you went around it. But once you made it past the obstacle, then you could immediately go back to trusting your compass.

The point here is that the compass was the source of ultimate truth. It didn't matter what you saw. And as it pertains to your creative journey, the point that I really want to drive home here is that you don't really know where your path is going to take you. But that's OK because you'll discover it as you walk it out by aligning the things that you make with your vision and your values. That's what the whole PKM Stack framework is for. But if you wait until you know exactly where to go, you'll never take the first step.

So get out there, make something, and get that Creativity Flywheel spinning. Once you do, you will see the path emerge before you do.