Leadership & Mindset
Does productivity hurt creativity?
I love the Chinese concept of yin and yang. It reminds us that all things in the universe must be in balance. Good with bad, positive with negative and productivity with creativity. What?? You heard right, productivity and creativity are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The part of your brain that handles organized productive thought is the opposite side of the one that comes up with the crazy out of the box thinking that creates revolutionary shifts. I often hear comments like “I was on the plane and all of a sudden, I had this great idea”.
Do less, accomplish more
We are in the tail end of January and many have already given up on their new year’s resolutions. In life just like in business, too many people “fail” at accomplishing the goals they set up for themselves. This is a great time to remember one of my favorite questions “What’s most important to you about […]” Doing less accomplishing more This is a simple sentence that has been used to turn around dying companies and turn around marriages. Forget about trying to accomplish 500 things simultaneously and distill your commitments to the real value-add goals.
You make bad decisions when too much info is available
We live in the information age where almost anything can be researched and learned from the massive information superhighway. But is too much information a bad thing? Psychology today has an interesting article that claims the more we learn, the harder it becomes to make a decision. Pushing the point just a little more: more information may encourage us to make a worse decision. The article is worth reading and one paragraph that stood out at me was this:
How I write my blog entries more efficiently
A question I receive once in a while is what application I use to write my blog posts. Most people believe I must be using Microsoft Word or Google Docs but this couldn’t be further from the truth. What am I looking for? When writing a blog post, I want a simple clean work environment with the fewest number of distractions possible. Additionally I want a tool where I can prepare my entire post and then copy and paste it into my CMS.
Creative Thinking Tip #8 - Be silly and draw something
If you haven't read my other articles in the series, read them before continuing: Creative Thinking Tip #1 - Take The Day Off Creative Thinking Tip #2 - Make A Friend Creative Thinking Tip #3 - Small Is The New Big Creative Thinking Tip #4 - Learn To Mediate Creative Thinking Tip #5 - Daydreaming Your Way To Creativity Creative Thinking Tip #6 - But What If You Could Creative Thinking Tip #7 - Disprove The Assumptions TIP #8 BE SILLY AND DRAW SOMETHING Creativity encourages creativity.
Creative Thinking Tip #7 - Disprove the assumptions
If you haven't read my other articles in the series, read them before continuing: Creative Thinking Tip #1 - Take The Day Off Creative Thinking Tip #2 - Make A Friend Creative Thinking Tip #3 - Small Is The New Big Creative Thinking Tip #4 - Learn To Mediate Creative Thinking Tip #5 - Daydreaming Your Way To Creativity Creative Thinking Tip #6 - But What If You Could TIP #7 DISPROVE THE ASSUMPTIONS When using creativity to solve a problem, this tip may come in handy.
Creative Thinking Tip #6 - But What If You Could
If you haven't read my other articles in the series, read them before continuing: Creative Thinking Tip #1 - Take The Day Off Creative Thinking Tip #2 - Make A Friend Creative Thinking Tip #3 - Small Is The New Big Creative Thinking Tip #4 - Learn To Mediate Creative Thinking Tip #5 - Daydreaming Your Way To Creativity TIP #6 BUT WHAT IF YOU COULD? Usually when I talk to someone who is stuck, I get some type of response like “I can’t think of…” or “I can’t find a way to…” or something else similar to that chain of thought.
Creative Thinking Tip #5 - daydreaming your way to creativity
If you haven't read my other articles in the series, read them before continuing: Creative Thinking Tip #1 - Take The Day Off Creative Thinking Tip #2 - Make A Friend Creative Thinking Tip #3 - Small Is The New Big Creative Thinking Tip #4 - Learn To Mediate TIP #5 DAYDREAMING YOUR WAY TO CREATIVITY Even as children, most of us were told daydreaming was a useless activity and we were normally told to “snap out of it and concentrate on the task at hand”.
Creative Thinking Tip #4 - Learn to mediate
If you haven't read my other articles in the series, read them before continuing: Creative Thinking Tip #1 - Take The Day Off Creative Thinking Tip #2 - Make A Friend Creative Thinking Tip #3 - Small Is The New Big TIP #4 LEARN TO MEDITATE An interesting study was released by psychologist Lorenza Colzato & al from Leiden University in the April 19th issue of Frontiers in Cognition. You probably haven’t read the article but it explains how certain meditation techniques can help the creative thinking process.
Creative Thinking Tip #3 - Small is the new big
If you haven't read my other articles in the series, read them before continuing: Creative Thinking Tip #1 - Take The Day Off Creative Thinking Tip #2 - Make A Friend TIP #3 START SMALL A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC) I love the writings of Lao tzu so it is only fitting that he provides my third tip to break the creative deadlock.