Why You Need to Create Things With Your Hands

Unplug and do something tactile

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

-Anne Lamott

Give your hands something better to do than typing and scrolling.

If you’re not mindful, your day will be spent rotating between a little screen, a medium screen, and a big screen. You have to be intentional about stepping away, and one of the best ways to do that is through doing something with your hands.

I’m not talking about woodworking or painting or anything like that (though those are good things), I’m talking about the simple act of getting out some paper, pens, and scissors to give your body the chance to do something tactile. Your hands can do more than type on a computer or scroll on a phone.

Getting away from screens and surrounding myself with analog items is one of my favorite pursuits.

I turned a Field Notes notebook into a pocket book:

The Analog Card started as a handmade card:

I printed and glued a passage from The Lord of the Rings into my notebook:

The best part is that you don’t need to be artistic to do this - none of these require skill.

Creating something with your hands is calming. You can feel yourself settle into the present moment. It engages all of your senses. See what you create. Feel the paper. Smell the marker. Hear the scissors cut. Taste the glue (Wait, what? Okay, maybe avoid that one).

Joseph Campbell had a specific recommendation about this:

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

You need to find refuge in a place or a time so your brain and body can relax without the constant stimulus of a screen. Paper and scissors do that for me.

Try it: Today, put all your screens away and make something 100% analog. Maybe you can’t commit to an entire hour, so start with just ten minutes. See where your hands and mind take you with a small pocket of time.

To help you get started, I made a list of 7 simple projects you can start today. Let me know you want it by commenting HANDS, and I’ll send it to you.

Our small daily acts contribute to a more grounded life. This is how we start living a life of intention.

-Mark