Creativity can often feel fierce and volatile – a strange counterpoint to the analytical system required to achieve true productivity. For musician, podcast host, and producer Hrishikesh Hirway, producing his best work means combining an inventive idea with disciplined practice. Some of his standout projects, like the podcast series Song Exploder, which turned into a Netflix documentary, explore this carefully crafted balance between flow and structure. He spoke with Tiffany Jones Brown about his own creative work, how to harness deep focus by restricting distractions, and the role of collaboration in creativity.
What does creativity mean to you?
Hrishikesh Hirway: I think that depends on the role it’s meant to play in your life. For me, creativity isn’t something I dabble in here and there. It’s an essential part of who I am and the thing that brings me the most satisfaction. [When I was younger], creativity was in some ways the name of the strange island I lived on that was different from the life my parents understood and the culture I was raised in. It felt like a way to distinguish all the impulses I had that fell outside of what was expected. And that was the thing that gave me a lot of joy. The idea that this thing isn’t here today, and then the next day it is, simply because I made it.
What lessons have you learned from working with other creative people?
One of the things I’ve learned significantly, at least about myself, is that I need to impose some kind of discipline – something that feels like the opposite of creativity, some structure to actually engage with it. I’ve seen people do this in different ways. I talked to people on the Song Exploder podcast who told me: I went on a mission where I wrote a song every week for 12 weeks. Or I wrote a song every day for 30 days. What I’ve started doing in the last few years is designating every Friday to work solely on music.
This is part of my routine now. I schedule no other meetings and take no phone calls. I try not to look at my email because I can easily get drawn to the feeling of productivity by checking email or social media. I don’t know if there’s a way to create a sense of creativity, but there’s a way to create the conditions to tap into any creativity you have.
What’s your advice for staying focused and creatively engaged – especially when working remotely?
Well, it definitely helps to be in a place where I can step outside and take a little walk or even do some walking outside my garage. Getting up and stepping away from what you’re working on is really important. Whether that’s internally or externally or virtually. That helps.
I think one of the reasons that working remotely feels natural to me and I enjoy it is that I really love talking to people on the phone. And I think that helps a lot – taking a break from what I’m working on to give my brain a refresh, but also in terms of the actual things I do when I talk to people remotely, or when I interview people for the podcast and they are in another location. I don’t find that being physically away from someone diminishes the sense of intimacy or connection you can have with them.
You often discuss creative collaboration with your guests on Song Exploder. What role can collaboration play in “polishing” a creative idea?
One of the things I think about a lot when it comes to my own creative process is something Trent Reznor said in his episode of the podcast. He was talking about his collaboration with Atticus Ross as part of Nine Inch Nails. He would present some ideas, create something, and it would be messy. Then he would leave, and Atticus would take over, and try to make some rational sense of it. By allowing Atticus to come in and look at it, he can now identify the things he responds to. [The other person] can be a bit analytical and also allow them to have some gut reaction to this thing that he originally did instinctively.
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There is a balance in the creative process between intuition, discipline, and analysis. What do you think about that?
I believe that creativity – despite all I’ve said about providing discipline to explore it – does not happen in an abstract way devoid of analysis. Often, it does not manifest in your life in an organized and neat manner. A lot of it is difficult to distinguish from garbage, and there is an element in the work where you need to be focused on what you are thinking and feeling and capturing so you can return to it.
So I would say they are both extremely important: the analytical side of things and the intuitive side of things. But they must coexist because without intuition, without the instinctive part of creativity, you won’t have anything that feels alive. Some people are really good at being able to do both. Some people can generate ideas and analyze them, and they can do it at a level of coolness that allows them to see what really works. But the reason many artists work with producers, or the reason many people have bandmates, or have external collaborators, is that often you really need another person’s brain there to tell you what works.
For more of this conversation, listen to the Remotely Curious podcast, Dropbox’s podcast about remote work.
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