Creation to Consumption Ratio

In the past year I have turned my attention to many inputs on what is happening in the world today: blogs, television, newspapers, magazines, and podcasts. How can you blame me? There was a gripping election, an economic crisis, innovation in technology, and a lot of guilty pleasures reading celebrity gossip. This has taken a lot of my time and as a result I am consuming more content than ever. This is great, but where did all my creation go? Where did all of your creation go?

When I say creation, I mean content creation. These are the light-weight Twitter updates to mini-documentaries uploaded to YouTube. These are photos uploaded to Flickr to songs written and shared on MySpace. Some activities are easy, and can be done in two minutes. Others will take a day to a couple of days. And if you are extremely inspired you can spend weeks to months creating something.

I think it is important to have a healthy mix of consumption and creation. Consumption makes you more aware of your surroundings and helps you see the world from a different perspective. Creation enables you to define your surroundings and share your interpretation of the world through your own lens.

In the next two to three months I am going to adjust the amount of things I consume. Filter out the inputs that have become noise, and focus on the ones that I value. I am going to increase my creation to consumption ratio each week. Look out for photos I have taken, small articles, and if I am ambitious a video coming soon.