The technology industry, and everyone associated with it, is obsessed with productivity. Every week there’s a new app, framework, or method that people swear will unlock our creative potential. Liberate the Kraken.
But while we rack up digital tools, an analogue technique developed by Walt Disney from nearly a century ago seems to be more relevant and enduring than ever.
The method is deceptively simple: three chairs, three roles, three perspectives to tackle a problem. Disney would move physically between them to embody the idealist, the pragmatist, and the constructive critic. The physical change forced him to adopt a mental change.
- Dreamers generate unlimited ideas. Without them, there wouldn’t be anything to build.
- Realists transform these ideas into concrete plans. Without them, dreams would stay trapped in imagination.
- Critics buff and refine ideas. Without them, ideas can never mature and continue to drag on with their mistakes.
Disney looked at each idea from these three perspectives. What’s striking isn’t the method, but rather what it says about our relationship to creativity. We’ve turned innovation into an industrial process, with timed sprints and brainstorming sessions that look like production lines for ideas. Technology companies sell the illusion that creativity can be optimized like the performance of a processor.
But that’s not true. Innovation is born from the friction between opposite ideas. Disney understood it: We need the clash between the endless optimist and the skeptical pragmatist. Revolutionary ideas rise from that tension, not from a process with no resistance.
Digital productivity tools have a place in the process, but they’re frequently only an elaborate distraction. We spend more time organizing these ideas in apps than developing them. I’m guilty of it, too. The best thing about Disney’s method is its simplicity: It eliminates the barriers between thought and action.
The lesson: We need less features and more friction. Less automation and more deliberation.
The next time you feel stuck, try the following:
- Three chairs
- Three perspectives
- Zero notifications
Can this method work in the era of remote work? Disney died before the Internet existed, but his technique is timeless. In fact, it’s even more relevant in a world where the lines between your work and personal life are continuously blurry.
Images | Xataka On via Grok
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