The Art of the Unfinished Idea

// The Chaotic Folder

The last two weeks, I've spent almost every moment outside of work sorting around 50,000+ files on an external hard drive.

You see, one of my hard drives died - literally wouldn't boot up and wouldn't connect to my Mac, it made all the right noises, it whirred, the lights gave a little whimper of a flicker and everything seemed like it was supposed to work but it didn't. I'm not some technical luddite - I know when something should work and I did all the normal things, changed the cable (gotta be the cable right?), then I unplugged it and plugged it back in.

Nope.

So I connected it to another Mac. Same thing. Whirred up, clicked and lights flashed but nothing.

At first, I was overwhelmed - especially because it held a LOT of files - some client work, some files I'd been working on recently and then several old folders which had been sat on the drive for ages (I mean, this drive is 4-5 years old). So I needed to find a solution..

In stepped 'Disk Drill' - it's a recovery program and since I bought it (cost about £45) - I've used it twice. The problem is that I didn't set up the 'recovery' properly and when it did it's thing, it dumped all the files into one single solitary folder - 1.4TB of data, all in one folder.

Now, I'm not sure if you've ever encountered this problem - having to manually sort and then put files into various folders but it's time consuming and extremely (and I mean, extremely) annoying.

Luckily the Mac allows you to sort by type and you can kind of have some sort of order to the chaos so you can easily spot photos or videos which belong together but then you get into the messy weeds of spreadsheets, Photoshop files and even worse, Word documents and they'll all blend into one.

As I clicked through, sorting the photos, the videos and then the other files - I was uncovering files from a loooong time ago - literally pulling the files down from the top shelf of a very dusty bookshelf and blowing the dust off of them as I opened them up (digitally of course).

I was finding files from years ago - logos I'd designed, email funnels I'd written, Photoshop files from forgotten Instagram posts and mockups of profile pictures, Linkedin headers and they were all little sparks, little notebooks waiting to be rediscovered.

I'm sure they all felt like the squeaky toy in Toy Story as my mouse hovered closeby, wishing I would double click and embrace the long forgotten creativity and some I did, some I spent (too long) some time taking in and it was nice to sit (in the early hours admittedly) looking at old work that I'd done.

All of this raw, unfinished material was a hidden treasure trove of unfinished ideas, all waiting patiently to be mined and brought to the surface.

// Incompleteness as Opportunity

It's completely different and in complete contrast to my finished work - I need that work to be completely perfect, every word needs to be just right, the colours on an image in ideal contrast and every edit on a video to match a specific rhythm.

The freedom of leaving something unfinished is sometimes wonderful - don't get me wrong, I am a perfectionist and I love to put good work out there but every little idea that might have been started, every logo designed (I mean, I created a whole suite of assets for a podcast idea that I never launched) means it all still has potential.

Just like a little seed beneath the soil, it small, hidden and full of potential - the work we put into the world is quite often the fully grown plant but having so many little seeds on this hard drive is pulling at my curiosity - I've created folders full of ideas and projects that I never 'finished' and all they need is a little water to see the light of day.

All these loose ends drive my appetite to return to certain things and explore anything that I left unfinished and it's reminded me that we all have so many unfinished drafts and they're not failures - they're little open doors into things.

Genuinely, I have opened up so many files on my Mac over the weekend that I reckon the operating system is thinking that a toddler is playing with it - clicking on anything which looks remotely interesting, opening up a myriad of files and then organising them into some crazy (newly discovered) archaic system which means something to only me.

// The Hidden Spark in Your Chaos

The file I found - the full asset suite for a podcast called 'The Outcome' where I'd interview other business leaders on how they got to where they're at and what things they learnt along the way - it was a glorious idea I thought at the time, so much so that I invested so much time into generating all the artwork and laying out a full plan on how the podcast could run.

Only now do I realise that it's like every other podcast - but I suppose, I wanted to focus on successful people and then work backwards - how did they start, what did they do to start and what made them keep going.

Each of these files and each of these ideas are little sparks for my next big piece - something that I (once) thought of as 'junk' is now resurfacing to become something original again.

Ideas for blog articles litter my Apple Notes app - there are so many ideas, I've got around 100 open chats on ChatGPT where I ask it random things and get it to flesh out a 'course' of some sort - there are SO many ideas that I have that actually, any of them could be turned into a 'thing'.

But the fact is - all these fragments, all these little unpolished unpublished pieces of work are valuable to me.

Because I spent time on these things, I had these ideas and I once took action on them - they are all little sparks of inspiration which need more attention, more work and ultimately, more time.

My wife was asking me repeatedly what I was doing, I was frantically grabbing my headphones as I opened up a forgotten music track or grabbing my glasses to read the small text on an unfinished Instagram carousel and she said the immortal words "Why don't you just delete them and start again?"

WHAT?

I couldn't possibly - these are all my ideas! They are tangible, real life things. It's like asking someone to throw away their diary.

// A Simple Ritual

I think I've uncovered a new little way to spark my own creativity as I now have an 'Unfinished Ideas' folder on my (new) hard drive which I've started to add loads of little snippets to and where I'm adding files that I think I could create something. It's a place for all my stray, slightly wonky ideas and once a week - when I have the time, I'm going to visit this folder for a little play date.

The play date of all play dates - I'm going to be revisiting my old ideas to see if there is a spark which could lead to a new project, a new little exciting 'thing' to play with. I'm never short of ideas (except with this newsletter sometimes) but I think it will be nice to have a place where I can go to for inspiration which shows of the places, the files, the ideas and the things which I've created over time.

I was this little small new habit to turn all that chaos into creative fuel - it's a repository of fun to look at - I'm not taking my wife's literal advice to wipe the slate clean and go again but I am 'going again' on some of these ideas as they were once worth something.

Whenever I've looked at others online who 'preach' about how they find their creative flow, they always cite a list of websites for people to look at, a Reddit forum you can bounce to but all of this involves you searching for the 'thing' you want to be inspired about - whereas my method will be completely unique to me, because they are my ideas - all mine.

All of this chaotic ideation - in one single file won't overwhelm my (already) hectic schedule too - I'll always make time to look at (around) 5000 files of 'junk' - it's like grabbing that old box of junk down from the loft and going through it. I'll know it's there, I'll likely know some of it's contents after a few visits but once in a while, I'll find something new to spark my creative flow and maybe, just maybe there will be something there that I can use.

It's exciting I think because it's going to be like reusing the old ideas to generate new ones and I'm excited to see what 'old' me created.

// The Next Breakthrough

So I challenge you - right now, find your way of creating that “Unfinished Ideas” folder and throw in all your files which may/may not contain anything - that way, you get to pick one rogue file at random.

Don’t overthink it.

I've been just letting my cursor land on something dusty, gap-toothed, half-typed. And then I read it.

I just want to feel the pull of that stray spark.

Maybe it’s a sketchy outline, a fragment of a sentence, or a stray quote you jotted down at 2 a.m, but you get to ask yourself: What if I lean into that itch? What fresh path could unfurl from this loose thread? You don’t need to finish it - just sit with it, let your mind wander for five minutes.

In that brief wander through your own past, you might stumble on your next big idea.

The treasure’s been sitting there all along, hiding in plain sight among the “junk.”

Go on - give your unfinished a shot.

You’ll be surprised how often the best stories start in the gaps.