You tend to make better progress on things when you can establish a rhythm: over time, your daily, weekly, monthly habits become a natural part of your life. The Monday Memo is a brief note that goes out to members of the school every Monday, introducing an idea to think about, along with a simple activity, exercise or experiment that you can conduct during the week to expand your adjacent possible. The purpose of the Monday Memo is to help you develop your possibility habit: A spark, provocation or hypothesis every Monday gives you something to think about, observe, or experiment during the week. On Friday, you’re invited to join us on our Campfire call to share your insights and reflections (or anything else that’s fueling your creative energy!).
The inspiration comes from a psychologist named James J. Gibson, whose research focused on human perception, most famous for coining the term affordance. He hosted a weekly “perception seminar” that was known for stimulating exciting discussion and debate. In preparation for the seminar he would send out weekly memos as provocations to stimulate thinking. These memos became known as “purple perils” because they were printed on old-school mimeograph machines. You can read more about Gibson’s purple perils, and even read them, here.
The Monday Memo is food for thought to fuel your week. School of the Possible members receive a Monday Memo every week by email.