This morning I had coffee with a bunch of young nonprofit professionals and we talked about the millennial generation. Millennials are those of us born between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s. We’re young, creative, natives of the digital world, prone to multi-tasking, and we’ve entered the workforce in droves. A few Google searches have revealed we’re a large generation, second only to the baby boomers.

It might’ve been the coffee, but all of my peers around the table seemed excited and passionate, the exact opposite of the way I’ve felt lately. Instead of embracing technology, I’ve run from it. Twitter, Facebook, my RSS reader have all been sources of distraction. Worse, it feels like constant information overload!

But to be creative, you have to embrace the new and the different.It’s a constant series of tasks. Filling the well. Talking to people. Being wrong.

A chunk of my week is spent at work, where I am one of three millennials working diligently in our cubical silos. I’ve learned the rules pretty well, and everything is fine as long as I adhere to the rules. But data and rules aren’t creative. Streamlining procedure is the best I can do. While I’m good at it, it leaves me exhausted at the end of the day.

I’d rather be fingerpainting.

So my goal is to integrate the creative amidst my data gathering, my research. Marring the details with the bigger picture and the pretty.

How do you integrate the creative into your every day life?

Advertisement