Existential Psychology

Curating Your Work Is A Key To Success

By  | 

Whether we’re talking about photography, writing, or any other creative endeavor, what you don’t let people see is as important as what you do let them see. More is not always better, and in fact sometimes it’s a lot worse.

This happens all the time with writing, where some feel compelled to fill up the space. They might have a few good ideas but they don’t think the piece will be substantial enough if they stick to those ideas so they start to confabulate around them, adding a bunch of fluff and filler, turning what could be a good paper into one that’s mediocre and boring to read.

Or take photography. The work that you see from photographers is only a tiny fraction of all the pictures they have taken. In fact a general rule of thumb in photography is that if you can get just one good picture a day you’re doing great. A huge part of creating a strong personal brand is deciding what to exclude.

Like we said you can apply the ideas here to pretty much any creative endeavor. What people don’t see is just as important as what they do see. A good way to help you decide what should be excluded is to use your own feelings about your work as a barometer and only include the stuff you’re genuinely excited about. If you feel so-so about something what makes you think your audience is going to feel any differently?