Hi all,

Like many in tech, I’m fascinated by how AI will change the future of work. Smarter people than me have made great points about how AI can make us more efficient, and I tend to agree. But if AI is taking tasks off our plate, what do we do with our extra time? What makes our work “human”? I believe our jobs will focus more on our unique skill: creativity.

At its core, creativity is the act of generating new ideas. AI tools are powerful, but they need us to prompt them — they can’t make connections or come up with ideas on their own. This is why I think creativity will be a key skill for the future, reaching beyond just the arts and entrepreneurship. Today, I want to talk about how the flywheel concept has helped me develop my own process, and share tips on how to build your own creative flywheel from the ground up. Let’s dive in.

Startups love to talk about flywheels. Jim Collins first introduced the flywheel concept in his landmark book Good to Great, and it became a cornerstone of Bezos’ Amazon strategy. Today, it’s a foundational principle for building a company. A business flywheel is a self-reinforcing loop where each action drives the next, creating momentum and growth over time. Think of it as a virtuous cycle where every part of your business fuels the others, making the whole system more efficient and powerful. You can even have multiple flywheels in a single system, each one boosting the other, creating even stronger momentum and speeding up growth across different parts of your business.

This idea has become so prevalent that entrepreneur (and Amazon alum) Jake Singer ran a blog called The Flywheel, dedicated to exploring virtuous cycles in startups. One of his best-known pieces^[1] connected the concept to creativity, encouraging creators to view their work as a flywheel. He used tech and business writer Packy McCormick as a prime example, showing how his writing practice unlocked additional business opportunities, which in turn enhanced his writing.

Let’s take this a step further. Creativity is all about making connections and generating ideas. To improve your creative skills, you need to boost the number of ideas you generate. It’s a numbers game—the more ideas you have, the better your chances of hitting on a great one. This is the core idea behind brainstorming sessions. The goal of the creative flywheel is to create a virtuous cycle of idea generation, giving you a better shot at producing quality ideas.

Adding Your First Flywheel — Make Legos

If you start at the absolute base, your experiences and the content you consume are the engine for your ideas. No matter what you do, you’ll naturally make connections between these things and generate new ideas. That’s just being human.

The first and simplest step to building your creative flywheel is capturing these ideas. Just putting your ideas into external forms like writing, sketching, or speaking naturally develops the idea. This new external form then enables you to rearrange the idea and unlock new discoveries that wouldn’t have been possible if it stayed locked in your head. Psychologist Daniel Reisberg called this phenomenon “detachment gain.” Essentially, taking that spark of inspiration rolling around in your brain and turning it into something tangible forces you to refine it, making it usable.

To use one of my favorite startup metaphors, think of these externalized forms as lego blocks. Once you’ve turned your idea into a lego, you can rearrange and reassemble it into entirely new creations. It becomes a virtuous cycle where using your existing blocks inspires new ones, and so on. And just like that, you have your first creative flywheel.

So, how do you start producing these legos?

• Pick a medium — Figure out how you’ll capture your ideas. Don’t overthink it—just choose something you can express yourself with easily. Writing and sketching are common choices because they’re simple and portable, but it could be anything: a photo, a voice note, a formula, a code snippet. You just want to make it easy to get ideas out of your brain.
• Build a habit — The key to this flywheel is regularly putting your ideas on proverbial paper. Set a low bar — I do a 25-minute writing Pomodoro most mornings, and the only requirement is to jot down whatever’s rolling around my brain.
• Set a format — It can also be helpful to have a simple format, so that you don’t waste mental energy on figuring out what to create. Think about your interest areas or fields and find an easy expression with a lot of room for improvisation — I like the 25-minute writing timer, but a developer may challenge themselves to write a random function, a photographer may take a picture, or a chef may try to create a new salad each day.
• One of the more famous examples of this flywheel in action is Jerry Seinfeld’s daily joke-writing habit. He writes at least one joke every morning, no matter how bad it is. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s consistency. Building a habit of simply expressing what’s in your head is enough to start creating your own legos and fueling your creative flywheel.

Adding Your Second Flywheel — Public Legos

One of the things I liked about Singer’s model is that he highlighted the value of sharing your ideas publicly. He shows how Packy McCormick’s weekly pieces built an audience interested in his ideas, which in turn enabled him to meet founders. Those conversations gave him deeper insights into tech businesses, allowing him to write even better pieces and meet more founders. It’s a perfect example of how sharing ideas can create a virtuous cycle.

This builds on the concept of detachment gain. While capturing your ideas is a powerful tool for refining and creating more ideas, Singer’s model emphasizes that publishing your ideas gives you access to more (and higher-quality) experiences, which in turn drive more ideas. When you make your idea legos public, you not only generate more ideas but also gain new experiences that further fuel your creativity. It adds yet another virtuous cycle to your burgeoning creative flywheel.

Now, making your legos public can be terrifying, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve found a few mental techniques to be valuable to getting over the hump:

• Smart small — It’s important to try to produce a lego every day (no matter how small), but it’s less important to share every day. I write for at least 25 minutes a day (one Pomodoro) and consider that my daily lego. My goal is to publish one article a week, and my daily legos eventually add up to that finished piece.
• Embrace imperfection — Recognize that your work doesn’t have to be perfect, and that sharing imperfect work can be more relatable and authentic. I find it useful to call out that my ideas are a work in process — it relieves some of my mental burden and invites collaborators into my thinking.
• Focus on the process — It’s easy in this post-influencer era to get caught up with your content stats. One of my favorite pieces from consultant Tom Critchlow, Small-B Blogging, makes a convincing case for creating for your own benefit, instead of the reactions of others.

The key is to get in the habit of regular sharing—maybe post a lego once a week. There are so many digital channels now that, no matter your medium, you can easily start sharing your ideas. Focus on finding the things that excite you. The more honest you are with what you create, the more likely you are to find people who are also excited by your ideas.

Adding Your Third Flywheel — Complements

One of my favorite insights from Singer’s piece is the value of a complementary projects. He advises creators to figure out their core activity—their legos—and then add secondary activities that are made uniquely better by the core activity and, in turn, make the core activity better over time. In Packy’s case, he started with his weekly newsletter, then gradually added sponsored content, guest appearances, and eventually his own investment firm. Each of these secondary projects complemented and enriched his newsletters, adding more power to his flywheel.

So, how can you integrate complementary activities into your creative process? Here are a few practical tips:

• Identify Your Core Activity: Start by clearly defining your core creative activity— this is the regular public lego we outlined in the second flywheel. This is your main focus and the foundation of your flywheel. In Packy’s case, this was his weekly newsletter, but it can be any regularly-shared public lego.
• Start Small and Scale Gradually: Your goal is build a sustainable flywheel, and that will generally mean starting slow. Focus on your core activity until it’s become a solid habit, and then gradually add complements. This allows you to manage your time and resources effectively without overwhelming yourself.
• Be Open to Opportunities: As you get comfortable in your flywheel, you’ll likely find that you naturally start thinking of complementary projects. Often these opportunities will appear from your public lego audience. Be open to conversations and letting ideas flow.
• Stay True to Your Vision: While it’s great to diversify, make sure that your secondary activities align with your overall creative vision and goals. These should be things that not only enhance your main work but are also improved by it. For example, if your core activity is writing, complementary activities could include podcasting, guest blogging, speaking engagements, or creating video content. A photographer may publish a regular zine, or submit work to other publications.
• Leverage Existing Content: Use your core activity to generate content for your secondary activities. For instance, if you write a weekly blog, use those posts as scripts for a podcast or as material for a newsletter. This not only saves time but also ensures consistency in your voice and message.

By building a tiered portfolio of activities that complement each other, you can create a more dynamic and powerful creative flywheel. This approach not only boosts your primary work but also opens up new avenues for growth and inspiration.

Pulling it all together

In the end, building your creative flywheel is about capturing ideas, sharing them, and finding complementary activities that enhance your core work. Start by consistently turning your thoughts into tangible forms—your legos. Then, share those legos with the world to gain new experiences and insights that fuel your creativity. Finally, look for ways to expand and enrich your core activity with complementary projects, creating a dynamic and powerful flywheel.

As AI takes over more routine tasks, our uniquely human ability to be creative will be a critical skill in the future of work. Don’t wait for the perfect moment or idea. Start today by capturing what’s in your head, sharing it, and watching how each step builds momentum. Embrace the journey, keep refining your process, and see where your creativity takes you.