Empty the bottom drawer

I listened to a terrific BBC interview with Paul Weller this morning.

The second part of the show featured Paul taking questions from the studio audience.

One of the questions was about his work in progress, lyrics and song ideas.

As you can imagine he always carries a notebook and scribbles ideas down as they come to him.

What he said next took me completely by surprise - at the end of the year he tears up his notebooks and burns them.

This took the audience and presenter by surprise too.

Paul's theory is if he hasn't used an idea by the end of the year then it isn't worth pursuing.

He went on to say he's far more interested in coming up with new ideas than revisiting old ideas.

I love that. In fact I do the same thing myself.

I've never kept a 'bottom drawer' of failed or rejected concepts.

If an idea doesn't fly I bin it. Simple as that.

Many creative types don't do this though.

They hang on to failed concepts and try to resurrect them whenever they work on a new client or start a new job.

Personally I abhor this sort of thinking. But each to their own I suppose.