Iterative Creativity

If the first idea was good, the 200th will be even better.

I’ve been thinking.

Do you remember building forts as a child? You’d go find a bunch of sticks for walls, and a bunch of leafy or pine needled branches for covering. You’d spend a few minutes hacking it together and it’d be perfect—for a child playing pretend. (I was always a special ops secret agent man). Back then, if your stick fort in the woods wasn’t optimally designed, so what? It was going to fall over in a few months even if you got it just right. Spending extra time planning every little detail killed the joy of creating. And honestly, it still does to this day.

This aversion to overthinking carries into my professional life. At work, we use CAD to design roads, sidewalks, and public infrastructure. There are basic guidelines for each project, but there are no off-the-shelf solutions—you can’t exactly buy a pre-designed roadway. (Fun fact: you can buy a predesigned bridge, though!)

When a designer starts working on a new roadway, they usually begin by sketching out a general concept in CAD on a design layer. The design layer is a scratch pad within CAD. Designers experiment with ideas and adjust the design until it meets all the criteria. The road might be widened here, narrowed there, or shifted slightly to fit better. They start with the basics and keep changing it. This is known as an iterative design process.

Iteration is creativity in action. When faced with a problem, you start by brainstorming solutions. Let’s call the first one Solution A. It sounds great but doesn’t quite work. Then comes Solution B, which fixes some issues but introduces new ones. Next, you try Solution C. And so on. Maybe Solution 1 (A, B, C) almost works, but part C doesn’t quite fit. You revise it into Solution 2 (A, B, D), but now part A doesn’t mesh with part D. Back to the drawing board: Solution 3 (E, B, D), or maybe something entirely new, like (G, H, P). You keep iterating until you arrive at the best solution (or run out of budget).

Here’s the thing: your first idea might feel like the best. You made it, and it’s your precious little baby. But just like you—and your mother will agree—it can always improve. Think of your ideas as seedlings. Your first draft is just the beginning. Those seedlings can grow into something extraordinary with care, iteration, and patience. Don’t let your creations stay adolescent. Nurture them. Refine them. Let them flourish into what they’re destined to become.

Don’t let your creations stay small and immature. Let them evolve through effort and iteration. Edison didn’t stop after his first failed attempt at a lightbulb—it took him 1,000 tries to get it right. So don’t be afraid to try, to fail, and to improve.

Whether you’re sketching, writing, or solving problems at work, remember: the first attempt isn’t the final product. The magic lies in trying again.

Go create something—tons of different times

Ryan