Try reading deprivation

Briefly cut off input consumption to surface your own creative impulses.

Why it works

Cameron’s counterintuitive move is to temporarily stop consuming others’ words and media. Constant input can be a sophisticated form of avoidance — filling every quiet moment so your own ideas never get airtime. Removing the inputs creates a productive restlessness that often gets redirected into making rather than consuming.

How to do it

1. Pick a short window (her version is a week; even a day or two works) to avoid recreational reading and feeds.
2. Notice the discomfort and the urge to fill it — and let some of it spill into creating.
3. Observe what you reach for when the usual inputs aren’t available.

Evidence

No formal study supports reading deprivation specifically. It overlaps loosely with ideas about boredom and mind-wandering relating to creativity, but as prescribed it is firmly a practitioner experiment, not an evidence-based technique. (anecdotal)

Purely practitioner; treat as an optional self-experiment. Not advisable to extend in ways that cut off needed information or connection.

Common mistake

Swapping reading for another passive input (TV, scrolling) and missing the point, which is to let the silence push you toward making something.