Friction = Efficiency?

I like friction.

It’s something I realized recently after taking a look at the things that I do and the people that I admire.

I’d rather walk than drive. I prefer handwriting and typewriters to laptops and spoken dictation. I’d rather struggle with arranging my thoughts than use a Chatgpt-generated outline.

I’m not suggesting that these tools don’t have utility — they all have their place — but more often than not, I like to take the road less traveled.

Also, here are some of my favorite creators:

Ryan Holiday, Robert Greene, Christopher Nolan, Makoto Shinkai, Hayao Miyazaki, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few.

What do they all have in common? They are evangelists for more personal but “inefficient” workflows and are impossible to reach.

In other words, they’re all love friction:

• Nolan won’t use CGI and is one of the few directors who still shoots with film cameras. He also has never owned a smartphone and rarely uses the Internet.

• Ryan Holiday and Robert Greene handwrite all their highlights in notecards instead of using a Kindle and having an electronic system.

• Hayao Miyazaki is the only animated filmmaker who still makes full-feature-length films 100% hand-drawn.

• Kurt Vonnegut preferred buying one envelope at a time rather than ordering a 100-pack on Amazon.

After making this revelation, I looked at my own workflow and realized that I’d strayed away from the things that gave my work substance.

I haven’t used my typewriter much this past month and I’ve been starting most drafts on my laptop rather than an index card I keep in my pocket through the day.

And the worst part is that the amount of writing I’ve done in the past month has decreased!

So thankfully, I have no excuse to not return to a more analogue workflow.

I won’t go full Nolan and ditch my iPhone (yet…), but pulling out my typewriter and trying 10 times to type a typo-free draft of my newsletter should be refreshing for my soul.

I’m in West Palm Beach this weekend, switching up my environment and seeing a friend, so I decided it was as good a time as any to turn down the intensity of my Internet activity for a few days and re-establish my connection with paper and ink.

If you’re like me, in the beginner phase of your journey, I’d urge you to find what your actions and inspirations all have in common.

The throughline will likely be a large part of your creative personality, and sticking with those core elements will help foster sustainability that you will never achieve by blindly following the most efficient system available.