Declaring Intellectual Insolvency: A Hard Reset for the Overwhelmed Creator

A to-do list is a promise to your future self. Unless there is an external demand for action, most items on these lists are merely ideas of things you might want to do. A financial analogy is that the items on your list are promissory notes, a form of debt. My debt had accumulated far beyond my available time, so it needed a radical action.

Some months ago I therefore self-declared intellectual insolvency. This is not the same as bankruptcy, which is a state of having no new or valuable ideas. Intellectual insolvency is a state of mind when the available time and resources are insufficient to undertake personal projects. It leads to inaction and to continuing to consume content instead of creating it.

Instead of staying overwhelmed by my to-do list, I decided to restore creative solvency with a radical restart.

This article is not a how-to guide, and I am in no way promoting anyone replicating my approach. Declaring intellectual bankruptcy is not for the faint of heart. It is a radical form of self-improvement that only works when you have the luxury to do so. I certainly don't recommend going to your manager and declaring bankruptcy because you are approaching burnout. As is also the case in financial situation, the debtor needs to agree to wipe the debt.

The first step was backing up my files and reinstalling my laptop with a fresh Linux setup and an empty Documents folder. I then installed Emacs (my digital fortress of solitude), bought a new paper notebook, and started with a tabula rasa, a 'blank slate'. I then reviewed the landscape of my ideas and future projects and distilled it into a single new focus, as described on the about page of this website.

To return to productivity, I first needed to rebuild the content-creation machine, which meant configuring my computer and Emacs to restart writing and publishing. I embraced a beginner's mindset and relearned Linux administration, bash scripting, and more Emacs.

Part of the clean slate also meant leaving my old websites behind and starting with this new one. The timing is auspicious because I built my first website exactly thirty years ago. This first part of the process has resulted in a series of articles on how to create websites with Emacs, which was one of the items lingering on my old list of promises to myself.

Now that the production machine is running full steam again and the website is live, I can start pulling old projects one by one from the backup, and either archive them or focus on them and bring them to completion.