“Jootsing”: The Key to Creativity

The concept of jootsing shows us that constraints and restrictions are essential for creativity.

Most of us say we want to be creative—and we want the people we work with and for to be creative. The concept of jootsing reveals why we often end up preventing that from happening. Creativity is impossible without in some way going against rules that exist for a good reason.

Limitations are essential because they give us a starting point and a shape to work against.

• Understanding a system provides something comprehensible to use as a starting point.
• It makes it possible to come up with something more interesting or useful. If you try to start a creative effort from nothing, you’ll end up with mere chaos.

• You need to permit a lot of exploration, including ideas that don’t work out.
• You also need to permit the making of mistakes if you want to foster creativity, because that often ends up leading to new discoveries.