Chaos to Clarity
Move any big idea from your head to reality one clarity-adding step at a time.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 93%
Every idea, problem, or belief starts in 'chaos' — amorphous and trapped in your head — and must be walked all the way to 'clarity' where others can see and build it. You get from chaos to clarity by adding clarity: each small step (write it down, make a deck, prototype) makes the idea more real and more shareable until it can be willed into existence.
Origin
Melanie Perkins / Canva internal concept. Related to Ed Catmull's 'ugly baby' idea from Creativity, Inc. (Pixar), which Perkins agrees with.
Core principles
- 01Ideas start amorphous and embarrassing because you have no mastery or answers yet
- 02Visual/written communication is what lets others see an idea and help will it into existence
- 03Each step should add a measurable increment of clarity
- 04Fragile new ideas (Catmull's 'ugly baby') must be protected from early killing
How to run it
- 1
Write it down
Get the idea out of your head onto the page. This first move alone converts pure chaos into something inspectable.
Watch out This step feels embarrassing because at the far end of chaos you have 'likely none of the answers' — do it anyway.
- 2
Turn it into a pitch deck
Build a vision deck that articulates the idea so other people can see your thinking. The act of making the deck clarifies your own thinking.
Pro tip Canva makes a big vision deck for every project kicked off.
- 3
Refine into designs and a prototype
Progress the deck into concrete designs, then a prototype, so the idea becomes increasingly real and more people can engage with it.
In the wild
Fearful about where humanity was heading, Perkins applied chaos-to-clarity to her own anxiety: the first step was simply writing a '2050 wall' starting with quotes, then articulating the alternative future she wanted, then running brainstorm exercises with others on how to get closer to it.
→ A concrete daily vision artifact beside her desk that she says angles her small everyday decisions toward the future she wants.
Common mistakes
Keeping the idea in your head
If an idea stays amorphous and internal, no one else can see it or contribute, so it can never be willed into existence.
Killing the ugly baby early
New ideas are fragile and look absurd at the far end of chaos; judging or discarding them before they've had steps to gain clarity destroys ideas that could have become real.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone with a big vague idea who struggles to make it concrete and shareable
Not ideal for
Well-defined problems that already have clarity and just need execution
From the transcript
“we have this concept of chaos to clarity”
“the very first step might be literally writing it down”
“turning it into some designs, turning it into a prototype”
“if it's just in your head, no one else can see it and you can't will it into existence”
From the episode
The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing
Melanie Perkins