There are no shortcuts in creative work

I don’t like looking for “shortcuts” in creative work. However, I’m doing a sprint of articles for the Gestalt Garden.

My plan is the following:

1. Generate a list of possible article ideas.
2. For each promising idea, create an outline for the article.
3. For each completed outline, write a draft.
4. For each written draft, edit the draft into the final article.

Usually, I always spend time preparing and processing the ideas I need to write an article. Why don’t I need to do the preparation for this sprint of articles?

I don’t need to do the preparation because it is already done beforehand in my Zettelkasten. In my Zettelkasten, I have many processed ideas that I have never used to publish. This sprint allows me to take advantage of the preparation work I’ve done in the past for other projects.

That’s why this sprint of articles is not a shortcut: it’s simply a different way of organizing creative work.