I need to stop looking at things

I keep deleting Instagram from my phone.

Then reinstalling it.

Then deleting it again.

It’s not even giving me much inspiration anymore. Mainly feelings of comparison, holiday and destination envy, and Ryan Gosling clips.

The Ryan Gosling clips can stay. The rest of it, I’m increasingly less sure about.

I’ve actually been enjoying Pinterest much more lately. It feels quieter. I can disappear down a visual rabbit hole without being told what somebody I vaguely know had for dinner or how successfully everyone else appears to be running their business.

Although the sheer number of ads it’s serving me is beginning to test that relationship too.

And I love a reference. I really do.

I can lose hours looking at interiors, art, fashion, typography, old photographs, materials, colour, exhibitions, things people have made and things I didn’t know existed.

But I’m starting to wonder whether all this looking is actually helping me have ideas.

Because Pinterest is an echo chamber too. I look at something, it learns that I like it, then very helpfully shows me 400 more versions of the same thing.

Which is sort of the opposite of what I need it to do.

The more references I collect, the more I’m filling my head with what already exists. And when I sit down to imagine something new, all those images are still sitting there.

I don’t want to stop looking at art or design or beautiful things. God, no.

But perhaps it’s less about looking somewhere else, and more about allowing myself the time to reflect on what I’ve already seen. That space of boredom and nothing, where I can actually let things settle, and then collate the inspiration of the day properly instead of just endlessly adding to it.

At people. At places. At how somebody has arranged the objects in their window. At what’s happening on a street. At a film. A book. A conversation. Something completely unrelated to whatever it is I’m trying to create.

Or, slightly terrifyingly, at nothing.

Because boredom and empty space are more useful to creativity than another 200 saved images.

I don’t really have an answer to this yet.

I mostly have an Instagram app I’ll probably delete again tomorrow and a Pinterest account I’m apparently expecting to surprise me despite having spent years teaching it exactly what I like.

So perhaps this is less advice and more a personal challenge.

Stop looking at what everyone else has already made for long enough to see what turns up in the gap.

Right after I’ve watched this woman have a life changing haircut….