Time to Write

How we get it wrong when we try to solve problems (Paul Scheele)

In an interview on the Fertile Unknown site, creativity expert Paul Scheele comments on how we get it wrong when we try to solve problems:

"If we examine time allocation, 20% of the time is spent in problem definition and solution finding, then 80% of the time is devoted to implementation. I can virtually guarantee that the solutions will have emerged from the same problem solving approach that unintentionally put the problem in place to begin with."

"We need to switch that equation around. Take 80% of your problem solving time in problem definition and solution finding. Explore seven, nine, or eleven potential solutions. Challenge each solution by anticipating the ways things could go wrong with implementation and build in creative approaches to maximizing the potential benefits. Then, 20% of your time will be devoted to implementation, which will also move much more smoothly and effortlessly. Spend more time in exploration of the problem – more time in creative exploration, new and unexpected solutions can emerge."

The next time you have a challenge, try devoting more time to defining it. What is it all about? What is it a part of? What are its constituent parts? Then generate more possible solutions than you normally would. Force yourself to go past the obvious or easy answers.

(For help with being more productive, see my book "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done" - be sure to get the one with the yellow cover, that's the new, expanded edition--from Amazon or your other favorite online or offline retailer. The associated website, with lots of free extras, is www.focusquick.com)

What motivates you (and chimps) to be most creative?

Artists & Illustrators magazine quotes painter Ewan McClure on the subject of creativity and money (or candy):

 "If you give a chimp some paint, paper and brushes, it'll get right down to it. It will scribble, mix colours, and evidently have a good time. As soon as you reward the chimp for the painting, there's a shift in attitude. It'll then try to find the bare minimum it has to do for the payout. The pleasure in the act is lost, and the candy becomes the goal."

Interestingly, that's also the main point in Daniel Pink's new book, "Drive," about what motivates us most effectively. Employers usually think it's money but more often it's satisfaction and a challenge.

The magazine also quoted painter Mick Rooney, who has had a long career. He says, "My work comes and goes [in popularity]. One minute people want to invest in it; the next, they're walking past it. I never want to discover myself in that way. I don't want to know that I can make money out of something. I want to develop and challenge myself and make paintings.

If you've ever been buffeted by the changing winds of the marketplace, these are good thoughts to have in mind.
 

(For support in your writing, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

How creativity crosses artistic divides (& you can, too)

 An article in Artists & Illustrators magazine describes how painter Kate Giles uses musical and literary inspirations:

"For this latest series [of paintings] Giles listened to chants for Vespers as she painted her Russian-themed works...She cites literary  heavyweights Anna Akhmatova and Alexander Pushkin as muses and quotes passages of their work that corresponds to her paintings."

She says of literature, "It's always been important to me, especially poetry. Using it in my paintings is a way of embedding it; I feel like that about music as well."

Lots of writers use music for inspiration but I'm not sure how many have been inspired by paintings. But if you're feeling a bit stale in your creativity, a visit to a gallery (or even to an online gallery if you don't have a real one nearby) could provoke some new ideas.
 

(Have you already enjoyed my book, "Creativity Now!" If so, please take a moment to write a review on Amazon. Thanks! If you haven't already read it, this could be a good time to order it...)

How constraints can actually help you be more creative

In Print Magazine, designer Craig Welsh told a story about a designer who was struggling with a project and called the studio's boss, who was on his way to an appointment and didn't have time to chat. The boss asked what the project was about. "Music." The boss said, "No, it's about amplification." He told him to stick to that theme, use only two colors, and jam together something musical with something animal." Oh, and do it in the next hour so he boss sould see it in his email after his appointment.

 Two hours later, the designs were done (see left). 

Sometimes constraints or limits work in our favor. Knowing that we have limited means or time concentrates the mind, whereas too much choice sends it flying in all directions.

If you feel unfocused about something, try setting some arbitrary limits and work within those. The limits depend on the nature of the project, but some examples are:

• time  (do it in the next hour; or the action in a play or film has to take place over the period of only one day)
• length (the report has to be no longer than ten pages, or the Powerpoint no more than six slides)
• location (the action in a scene has to all take place in a kitchen)
• number of characters (the play can't have more than 3)

In this sense, thinking inside a box can bring good results.

(For tips on how to be more creative and productive, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm & Focus e-bulletin using the form to the right if you're reading this on my blog, or by emailing a request to [email protected] if there's no sign-up form visible.)

Networking for shy people - a tip

 I'm working (slowly) on a book about networking for shy ...maybe even antisocial (yes, it's autobiographical) people...so I was interested to find seven tips on this topic on Steve Slaunwhite's blog. They're not surprising, but one that I think is an especially good idea is to volunteer.

Quite often the organizers of an event could use a hand with last-minute preparations, so if you show up a bit early and offer to help set up chairs or hand out materials, not only will you earn their gratitude but the arrivals are more likely to talk to you because you seem to be part of the event.

No excuses Monday 10: "I GET NO ENCOURAGEMENT"

You get no encouragement for your writing?

The solution:

I’m encouraging you: “Go for it!”

There, now you’ve had encouragement.

OK, you want more than that. If the people around you don’t take your writing seriously, sit them down and let them know this is hurtful. That may be enough to get them to change their attitude.

If not, make some new friends. Join a writing group. Find online forums. Take a class.

But the main source of encouragement has to come from one person:

You.

If you have something you want to share with the world, that’s your encouragement.

Writing something from your heart, that’s your encouragement.

The possibility of entertaining or inspiring someone you’ll never meet, that’s your encouragement.

Is that enough yet?

NO MORE EXCUSES?

That makes it a great time to start to write.

I hope this series will contribute in some small way to your success and I'd love hear your feedback and how you are getting on. You can email me at [email protected].

(If you'd like support for reaching your writing goals, come join my Breakthrough Strategy Program. It's an online coaching program and there's a group option and a one-to-one version. You can find out how it will help you, at www.jurgenwolff.com)

Out of our minds (how to be more creative)

I hope you've had a look at my new book, "Creativity Now!" Here's another book you might enjoy:

"Out of Our Minds" book review from jurgen Wolff on Vimeo.

Can wine be the path to greater creativity?

 Inhale. Swish. Swallow. Could this be a path to greater creativity?

Michael Gelb wrote "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" and other books on how to be more creative. 

His latest?

"Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking." (I'm not making this up.)

He says by drinking wine ""You are linking with a tradition that has inspired many of the greatest minds in human history, including Socrates and Plato, Leonardo and Michelangelo, and Franklin and Jefferson."

He covers the health benefits of wine, fills it out with poems about wine, advice about tasting wines, and how it fits into creativity. He says two glasses make you a poet). After three you think you're a GREAT poet, but only the people who have also had more than three glasses are likely to agree. (To be fair, he does emphasize the importance of moderation.)

Does it work? Maybe we should do our own experiments...

(When you've had a nice bottle of wine why not go online and order 100 copies of my newest book, "Creativity Now!" to distribute to all your friends...)

The trick to meeting deadlines

Setting yourself deadlines trips up a lot of people because they don't know there are TWO kinds of deadlines and you have to handle them differently:

Be aware of the two kinds of deadlines. 

You can set hard deadlines for the things you can control. For instance, let's say your goal is to write the first draft of your novel or to reach a certain weight level by a certain date. As that date gets closer, if you're behind schedule you can adjust your efforts accordingly.
 

The other type is target deadlines, for things not totally under your control. For example, let's say you want to land a new job by the end of next month. There's a lot you can in terms of applying, asking friends to keep their eyes and ears open, sending out resume, etc.--but you can't force someone to hire you by the deadline.
 

For these kinds of goals, target deadlines help make sure you are working hard to make thing happen, but you have to accept that you'll have to be flexible. Many people get discouraged and even give up when they don't achieve this kind of goal by the deadline--and that's a mistake. You fail only if you give up!

(for more on how to set and reach goals, see the new expanded edition of my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

Four for days when your writing isn't going well

I saw this quote from Kurt Vonnegut recently: "When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth."

Yeah, I've had days like that and I bet you have, too. In general, I'm a proponent of continuing to write whether it's going well or not--work through the tougher days. But once in a while it's a good idea to take other measures when the words aren't coming. Here are four that have worked for me--save these just in case you have one of those days:

* Go to the movies. Yes, even in the middle of the day. In fact, ESPECIALLY in the middle of the day. If your mind has been going in circles, a good movie will stop the spinning.

* Do some comfort reading. Go back to a book you love and read it again. And have some ice cream while you're reading.

* Change ways of expressing yourself. If you're a writer, do some sketches (it doesn't matter if you're not very good) or take some pictures and fool around with editing them. Or get some clay and make little figures.

* Take a nap. Maybe you need one.

I hope that helps. Do one of those and then get back to work. Just like the good days pass, so do the bad ones!

(Another way to stimulate your creativity is to dip into my book, "Creativity Now!" You can get it from Amazon or your other favorite online or offline retailer.)

Paul Arden's secret weapon for how to be creative

The late best-selling art director and film-maker Paul Arden had a secret weapon to stimulate his creativity, as revealed in Creative Review by his producer and business partner Nick Sutherland-Dodd:

"We had a huge book cabinet in the office. After a meeting about a script, Paul would go and stand in front of it and pull out books, and he'd find something in a picture that would become a germ of an idea or a technique for a commercial."

Arden used to haunt second-hand bookshops looking for offbeat books, totally open to finding something new to him. Sutherland-Dodd says, "Most of the time he didn't know what they were about, he didn't even understand the titles, he was just looking for ideas."

These days used bookshops are harder to find but most charity shops have a selection of books. Once you look past the Stephen King and John Grisham books, you're likely to find some esoteric titles that can titillate the imagination.

Another great source: the 2300 paintings from the UK's National Gallery that you can view online at www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

(Your secret weapon can be my book, "Creativity Now!" It reveals 25 ways to get into a creative state, 25 ways to generate ideas, 25 ideas to turn ideas into action, and 25 inspirational mini-case studies. If you've already read it and enjoyed it, please review it on Amazon or your other favorite online retailer's site--thanks!)

How to handle the email monster

It's probably the number one distraction in most people's lives these days: email. The monster that fills your inbox. You cut it down to size, look away for ten seconds, and there it is again. Here are some tips for coping better. (There are more tips like this in my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done," which has just come out in a second, expanded edition from Pearson.)

How to cope with email overload from jurgen Wolff on Vimeo.

No excuses Monday 9: "I HAVE WRITER'S BLOCK!"

Sometimes writer’s block comes up when reach a certain point in a project.

Suddenly your mind is empty.

You have no idea where the story goes next.

If this is happening near the start of the story, probably you have not thought your characters and story through well enough.

The solution: Back up, do some brainstorming about who these people are and what the story is about. Use the visualization method I suggested in No Excuses Monday 6. Write those scenes even though they won't be in your story. Keep going until you're writing scenes that ARE in the story.

If this is happening in the middle of the story, probably your problem starts earlier.

The solution: Go back to the first third of the story and check what’s driving your characters, what they want, what’s in the way. Write about how they got to the point where you're stuck and what forces are driving them forward. Jump forward in the story, then figure out what needed to happen for your characters to get there.

If you’re stuck near the end, it may be the fear of finishing. Once you finish, it’ll be time to submit it to an agent or publisher and then it might get rejected and then you’ll feel bad. Much safer to stop before the ending.

The solution: Promise yourself that you won’t have to submit it to anybody unless you really want to. When you get to that point, decide who is one person you can show it to who you know will be constructive. You can even post part of it under a pen name in an online critiquing site to get feedback.

Make it safe to take each small step and eventually you'll find you've taken the whole journey.

And one more solution for good measure:

Pretend that your writing block is a person and talk to it.

Ask it what the problem is.

Ask it what you need to do to move on.

It might say you should take a break, or it might say you need to disguise that serial killer some more so your brother-in-law won’t realize you’ve based it on him.

Make the process fun instead of work and the answers will come out to play.

(Sometimes it really helps to get support; that's why I started the Breakthrough Strategy Program. It gives you 60 days of friendly, supportive online coaching, either in a group mode or on a one-to-one basis. Find out how it can help you--details are at www.jurgenwolff.com)

Natural Brilliance

One excellent book on how to be more creative is "Creativity Now!" written by, er, me. Here's another:

"Natural Brilliance" review from jurgen Wolff on Vimeo.

Does your environment support your creativity and productivity? Here's how.

There was a great example not long ago in Inc. magazine of how the way you've set up your working environment can have a big effect. It was cited by Chip and Dan Heath, sibling authors of "Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard" and it involved a manager at Nike who considered herself a very open-door kind of manager. She was surprised when a survey of employees revealed they thought of her as a poor communicator.

It turned out that her computer was set up in a way that made it possible for her to see when a new email came in while she was talking to an employee, and it would distract her (in the same way it's almost impossible not to be distracted if there's a TV in your line of sight while talking to someone else).

When she changed her setup so that she couldn't see her computer when talking to employees, she solved the problem.

It's worth taking a few minutes to check whether your working space is set up for maximum effectiveness. A few things to consider:

* do you have the things you need frequently within reach?
* do you turn off your 'email pings' when you work?
* is your to-do list within view?
* do you have at least one plant nearby? (It's been shown they help air quality and attitude.)
* do you have at least one image that stimulates your imagination? (You'll need to change these regularly because once you get used to it, it becomes invisible.)

What else do you do--or can you do--to make your working space work better for you?

(Optimizing your working space is just one way to focus your energy and efforts for maximum effect. You'll find many more in my book, "focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." The expanded second edition is available now from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. And if you've already used the book to become more productive and focused, please put a review on your favorite online site--thanks!)