Category Archives: Creativity
Creativity Links I
“Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.” Og Mandino
Enjoy the following links to awaken your creativity:
Time management secret: do it tomorrow–“trick your reactive mind into doing what your rational mind wants.”
From the blog, How to shut up and enjoy the silence–”Silence is becoming a luxury—the kind it’s still okay to want. Silence lets you rest and reset, ponder and pontificate. The ideas that seem just beyond your mental grasp the rest of the day float effortlessly into your mind. And the world slows down, perhaps by just a few seconds, but enough to catch your breath.”
Fast company slideshow–What’s Disney’s Inspiration? This slideshow features 8 creators with answers to what inspires them.
The powerful link between creativity and play–video from TED ideas worth spreading–”Here’s an incredible video for people struggling with the tension between being “creative” and “playing”. Tim Brown does a wonderful job explaining why “play time” is mission critical to any creative person’s workflow. Hint: We have a lot to learn from children.“
How much is your creative time worth? “One of the biggest lessons I learned from reading a bunch of stuff on entrepreneurialism was not how to make money – it was how to put a price tag to my time. Honestly, the first book I read that made me think about that was The Four Hour Work Week
Finally, I will list the main ideas from this link as I need to remember them daily–from David Pierce writing for LivDev–
Finding and storing the creative juices–
“My solution to this dilemma has been to create a system that takes advantage of my creative moments to make my uncreative ones less problematic. In my experience, I’m feeling uncreative far more often than I’m feeling creative. Creativity comes in furious spurts, and I’m slowly learning how to take advantage of those in order to make feigning creativity easier, using tools like these:
1. Keep a list 2. Don’t finish what you start 3. Find new directions 4. Ask around 5. Bail
Everyone Has Creativity
Everyone has creativity. To get in touch with new energy in you, try one of the following exercises.
Action board—use a large bulletin board to post 3×5 index cards for the 5 main categories of your life. You may wish to use general categories; such as goals, deadlines, dreams, etc. of be more specific, such as marketing, sales, etc. Using different colored 3×5 cards may help you to see the categories more easily.
Every Sunday evening or another evening of your choice, review your boards and update them for the upcoming week/month/year depending on your system. This update will go quickly and will give you a clear, concise review of where you are and where you are going. This will lead to greater confidence. Remember if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Begin keeping a creative basket—pretend you are 10 years old or ask a young friend and/or family member to help you. Take a large basket with a handle and put all the things in it you might enjoy using to create a new project. You may include sequins, glitter, paste, colored pens, watercolors, sketch pads. You may use these materials to play with often as way to express your creativity.
Love Jar—collect a glass or clear plastic jar. Using bright construction paper, cut into strips. On the strips of paper, write down short suggestions for yourself of ways you can feel greater love in your life. These activities will also add new confidence skills. For example:
- Clean out a cupboard or drawer today.
- Take a warm bubble bath.
- Explore a new lake or a nature retreat.
- Make a list of 15 of your strengths and put it in your wallet
- Create a bulletin board of special cards others have sent to you or go to a card store and pick out 5-10 cards that you really love.
- Make a picture wall of your favorite picture.
- Make a cassette tape of your favorite inspirational quotations.
- Trade skills with a friend to explore new ways of doing things.
- Choose a new hobby or improve on an older one.
- Have company for dinner and create an original menu.
Begin keeping a loose-leaf notebook I call my “life-book”. The 5×8 size is convenient. I keep everything I might need to know in the immediate future. I also keep an index-sized Rolodex but the lifebook goes everywhere with me. It is a great companion when you’re remodeling or moving. You may have a companion on your computer.
Play is essential everyday for everyone. Plan to play everyday. The time you allot to play will repay you in increased productivity. Be sure to set time limits for play so that you don’t use play to prolong procrastination for some work you need to do.
