WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine
Vol. VII, Issue 10, Early June, 2003 ><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>><<>>
If you have already received this issue, I apologize. It appears that it has not gone out on schedule, so I am sending it again. Diana.
The Top Ten Ways to Enhance your Creativity
Creativity is generally regarded as desirable, and something to be enhanced. With this view in mind, below are some steps to help the development of creativity. However, although creativity is often thought of as relating to the creative and performing arts, remember that can take many forms. The criminal can turn creativity to illegal use as easily as the artist puts brush to canvas. Do not assume, therefore, that creativity is good in and of itself. Like most forms of power, it can be used for good or for harm.
1. Insist on giving yourself daydreaming time. Schedule it if necessary. During that time allow no "shoulds" or "musts" to intrude. Give your mind this time to float freely, untethered to tasks. Do not think of what you will be doing when this time is over. Allow yourself to gaze out of the window, to stare at the clouds, to daydream.
2. Be curious. Ask why? How? How come? Don't accept easy answers if they don't make sense to you.
3. Ignore tradition. Just because something has always been done that way, or used for that purpose, doesn't mean things can't change.
4. Play a game with yourself - or with others - in trying to find the most uses, other than the obvious ones, for every-day items like paperclips, bricks, anything that comes to mind.
5. Ask "What if?" Pick one aspect of an ordinary situation and imagine what would change if that one aspect were different. Follow this on through in all its implications.
6. Read science fiction. Allow yourself to become immersed in the worlds it depicts. Contemplate impossible things and parallel universes. The Queen of Hearts advised Alice to believe one impossible thing every day before breakfast. It was good advice.
7. Accept your initial ideas without judgment. Give them time to grow and develop before you test them. Butterflies that have just emerged from the chrysalis have wet, crumpled wings. Give them time to develop before you decide if they can fly. The reason brainstorming has become such a standby when group creativity is involved is that all criticism is put on hold during the initial idea-generating phase. Allow yourself the same freedom.
8. Take risks. It's okay to be wrong. By definition, to be creative you must consider new, and therefore untested, ideas. Einstein said that he could have ninety-nine ideas that were wrong before he got the one that was right.
9. Enjoy the PROCESS of creation. Do not focus on the result. The secret and ecstasy of creating is being in the flow, of losing yourself in the process. If you constantly break the flow to check to how the final result will look to others, to ask yourself, "Will it sell?" "Will it win?" "What will they say?" you will subvert the process and possibly damage your creation
10. Go ahead and DO IT! Don't wait for the perfect moment, it won't arrive. Painters paint, scrape the paint off and paint again. Writers write and delete. They don't wait until they can do it perfectly before they start. You do not need twelve sharpened pencils and perfect silence before you put pen to paper. Remember that Shakespeare wrote in an age when the whole family probably sat at the same table and shared the same oil lamp. It is unlikely that he had a separate study or could wait until the family had gone to bed in order to write. You CAN follow your muse.
(I wrote the original, slightly different, version of this Top Ten list back in 1998, but it is as true today as it was then, and many of my readers will not have seen it before.)
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Corral those Clippings!
Most people I know who are eager to grow personally and in their business lives are avid clippers of newspaper and magazine articles. I don't think I'm an extreme case, but I gather material about self-development, about coaching, about spirituality, intuition, time-management, creativity, and anything else that catches my interest - which covers a lot of ground. Because of some college classes that I teach, I also collect clips about addiction, drug treatment and counseling, and illegal drug use. Then there are the articles about making better use of my computer and the internet, about developing a better web site... the list goes on, as they say.
For me, and for many others, the problem often arises when one attemptss to file all these large and small pieces of paper. Which folder is best suited to which article? Which title is that folder filed under anyway? How to be sure I can find it when I need it? For some major and oft-used topics, obviously I have separate folders. But do I want a folder for a topic on which I have only one clipping, and may not find another? Space is limited, so perhaps I do not. What do I do with articles that have more than one topic? Because of such questions, many clippings have been gathering in a "file it when I decide what to do with it" stack that is against everything I know and believe in as regards efficient use of time and materials. Now, however, I have a new system which makes both filing and retrieving very much easier. Today I'm sharing it with you in hopes that some Work in Progress' readers will find it as freeing as do I.
1. The system is based on a simple database or spread sheet computer file - or several if you choose but as few as possible. For example, I keep a separate file for my addiction-related materials but everything else goes into one data-base.
2. I use separate columns titled Clip #, Main Topic, Cross Reference Topic, Source (newspaper or magazine name), Date, Title (this fairly large field includes both title of the article and a few brief words about the content), and Folder name. The folder name is simply a date range; say January 2003, or January/June 2003. The range will depend on how large a number of clips you save. Some people will want a new folder for each month, some will not need so many.
3. I enter the relevant information from each clip, which takes very little time. On the clip itself I write the date it appeared (done WITHOUT EXCEPTION at the time I clip it), and also the Clip Number corresponding to the number in the first column. Don't use the computer generated numbers at the extreme left, because they will change if you do a sort.
4. Stash the clips into a folder labeled whatever your date range is, for example January/June 2003, placing them in numerical order, NOT in date order. This way it does not matter if you enter them in date order or not - a big relief when you are catching up with an accumulation, either as you first develop the system or when returning from vacation or other distraction.
5. When you want to find all your clips on a specific topic - let us say "intuition" - you search or sort on your "main topic" field, and in an instant you can see where to find the clips you need. They are in the folder in numerical order so you can locate what you want quickly and easily.
If you decide to try this, please let me know how it works for you. It may sound cumbersome, but, having tried several different systems in the past, I find that this one, which I developed myself, is by far the most efficient for the way I work. Obviously it will not suit everyone.
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Missing a Work in Progress?
True, you did not receive the "mid-late May" issue, but only because I did not write one. My apologies - I think that is probably the first issue I have missed since I started writing two issues a month in the fall of 1997.
However, you may miss some issues for another reason. As various e-mail organizations such as aol.com, Hotmail and others try (at last!) to cut down on the amount of spam that their subscribers receive, they are inadvertently black-listing some mass mailings that their subscribers actually WANT to receive - such as "Work in Progress" and my other newsletter "Grounded in the Earth, Reaching for the Sky." Each month Work in Progress is "bounced" by some organizations, which, over time, leads to those subscribers being automatically unsubscribed. Sad. Very sad. Just so that you know, both my e-zines come from the IP address 66.179.49.232. You have the right to ask your ISP to "whitelist" (the opposite of blacklist) this address so that they do not prevent you from receiving these newsletters.
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RECOMMENDED READING
Walking in This World: The Practical Art of Creativity by Julia Cameron
Julia Cameron is famous for her book "The Artist's Way" - beloved of the vast majority of my clients. In "Walking in This World" she continues in the same theme, using some of the same techniques, but this book is definitely NOT just another re-write to keep her publishers happy. As one reviewer writes, "Cameron does indeed capture the feeling of strolling and talking with an old and trusted guide. Her core insights are the same as in earlier volumes, yet her words seem to have grown wiser... Her latest book reveals how reaching higher also means going deeper. "
To learn more and/or order, click on
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D1585421839/personalandcareeA/002-8534146-380480
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TELL A FRIEND
I hope that you enjoy Work in Progress, and that it is useful to you. To pass its benefits on to a friend or colleague, please forward this issue, perhaps with the suggestion that they might like to subscribe.
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PLEASE! Any re-use of this material has to include the words "Copyright Diana Robinson 2003."
For more information about personal coaching, and your opportunity for a personal half-hour sample coaching call with me, visit my web site www.ChoiceCoach.com or contact me at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com."
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Copyright 2003 Diana Robinson, PhD., PCC. Work in
Progress may be reproduced in its entirety only,
including this copyright line. Disclaimer -The contents herein are solely the opinions of Work in Progress owner, and should not be considered as a form of therapy nor advice. There is no guarantee of validity or accuracy. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, services of a competent professional should be sought.