How to do unique, creative work

It’s easy to say you should focus on doing interesting, creative work, but how do you actually go about that?

Writer James Clear says the answer is evident in the Helsinki Bus Station Theory, shared by Arno Rafael Minkkinen at a commencement speech for the New England School of Photography.

The theory is based on the Helsinki bus system, which has a station in the centre of the city that all buses leave from. For the first 1km or so, most of the buses share their route with several others, but after that first short period they split off into separate directions.

Minkkinen likened this bus system to the career of the photographers he was speaking to. Each bus route, he said, was like a direction they could choose in their careers. But after three years of working in one direction, they would still be in that first 1km where lots of other bus routes aligned with their own. They’d look around and see other photographers doing the same thing as them, and, frustrated at their struggle to find originality in their work, start over with a new bus route.

But the same thing would keep happening, since it would take more than three years to get past that first 1km to the point where the buses split off into separate directions.

You could repeat this process for your whole career, said Minkkinen, and never get to the point where your work takes on its own originality.

The answer? Stay on the bus.

In repeating this story, Clear points out that while showing up and spending time to hone your craft is important if you want to do great work, spending time on a huge variety of skills won’t ever get you to the point of mastery.

Focus is the way to mastery, says Clear, which is only achieved by staying on the bus. Eventually, you’ll see other people in your industry peel off into their own directions, and your work will start to shine in its originality.