If you have a creative block you’d like some help with, tell us about it – details in the first article in the series.

Artists and other creative people are not renowned for their powers of personal organisation. “A cluttered desk is a sign of genius,” we like to say, when challenged about our working conditions. And plenty of us can relate to Albert Einstein, whose wife had to chase him down the street to remove the coat hanger from the coat he was wearing, as he was too preoccupied with higher thoughts to notice such mundane details.

So I wasn’t surprised that several Lateral Action readers admitted to struggling with organisation when we invited you to tell us about your creative blocks.

“Organization – I have a lot on my plate and not completing any tasks.”

(Alexander Duque, Left Hook Fitness)

“I have problems with time management, and staying on task.”

(Are Morch, Twtrcoach)

“I put my personal creative work on the back burner. I think about it all the time, but cannot seem to bring the work to fruition… I am not good at structure {though I am very productive} and I don’t like the idea of to-do lists: just doing things to get it done. I want the process to be the creativity, the product to be the result of an amazing experience. With the kind of projects I am working on, the process needs to be soulful, mindful, thoughtful so the product I put forth will be too.”

(Alisa Barry, Bella Cucina)

Once upon a time, I wrote an article called Why You Need to Be Organised To Be Creative – leading to howls of protests in the comments:

“I’ve been in the business for 40 years and I know this- if you are organized you are probably not very creative. Ive never seen an organized creative person!!!”

“LIES!!! ALL LIES!! Organisation and routine destroy creativity. It destroys mine, and I become very lathargic and depressed when I sink into a routine, or structure things. Creative people dont need to be organised. This is all rubbish!”

Clearly, I’d offended against the unspoken artist’s code. My words didn’t fit the Romantic image of the artist who flouts the petty rules of society, surrendering to the divine madness of inspiration. And doesn’t wash the dishes for a week.

When I finished the series of articles, I released it as a free e-book: Time Management for Creative People. Several people told me it was the wrong title. “Creatives don’t want to know about time management, they run a mile from that kind of thing.” Undeterred, I went with the wrong title.

Then a funny thing happened. The e-book got downloaded. A lot. Some high profile bloggers wrote about it, leading to more and more downloads every day. I got a phone call from my hosting company: “What are you doing with that site? None of our other small business clients are using anything like the same bandwidth. I’m afraid we’ll have to upgrade your account.”

Last time I checked, the e-book had been downloaded 80,000 times. It’s led to numerous requests for workshops on the subject. And every time I’ve run the workshop, it’s sold out.

There’s an old saying that actions speak louder than words. While many artists and creatives scoff at the idea of organisation and time management, my experience suggests that there are plenty of people out there who are frustrated to discover that being disorganised can seriously damage your creativity.

Maybe this is one of the dirty little secrets of creativity. Maybe it’s not so romantic and exciting to be overwhelmed by an overflowing e-mail inbox, or to be perpetually anxious that you’ve forgotten something important. Maybe a little more organisation could actually make you more creative.

From my work with clients, I’ve seen that the biggest issue isn’t getting organised. That part isn’t rocket science. There are plenty of plenty of systems, books, blogs and software applications to help you with it.

The biggest barrier many creative people face isn’t getting organised — it’s getting over the resistance to getting organised. Once you deal with that, the actual process is pretty straightforward.

Is Your Work Working for You?

I’m not saying you have to be meticulously organised about every aspect of your life. I’m certainly not saying you need to be as anal as Lou, with his perfectly tabulated spreadsheets and project management systems. Alisa hits the nail on the head when she says there’s no point “just doing things to get it done”. You may look more organised, but it’s just foolish productivity if it doesn’t help you get your real work done.

Take a step back and look at your current work situation. How does it make you feel?

Does it enable you to set aside trivial distractions and focus 100% on your creative work? Are you getting the big, important, challenging things done? If so, I wouldn’t sweat too much about being ‘disorganised’, even if your office looks like a landfill site.

Or does your work make you feel anxious and frustrated, with e-mails, phone calls and mundane tasks getting in the way of the work you love? If so, then you could probably benefit from taking a different approach.

Create Your Own Structure

I find it telling that Alisa says “I am not good at structure {though I am very productive}” – which suggests to me that she may be better at structure than she thinks. It may not be a conventional 9-5 working day, but if she’s producing lots of good stuff, it may not need too much tweaking.

Have a look at this list of 25 Famous Thinkers and their Inspiring Daily Rituals. It includes some pretty unusual working habits – like John Cheever, who commuted to a basement where he stripped off to his underwear before sitting down to write; Gertrude Stein, who wrote her poetry sitting in her car (fortunately she parked it first); or Alexander Dumas, who began each workday by eating an apple at 7am under the Arc de Triomphe.

Unconventional? Yes. Organised? You bet. Effective? I think the results speak for themselves.

For some practical tips on devising your own creative routine, read my e-book on Time Management for Creative People (it’s free to download and share) and start experimenting with the ideas. It doesn’t offer a system, but principles for getting the important things done first – and dealing with the rest in a reasonably timely manner.

You may also benefit from some of the ideas in Block 3 of this series, Lack of Time.

Creativity Can Be Pretty Boring

Another part of Alisa’s description caught my eye, reminding me of something I’ve heard from many coaching clients:

I want the process to be the creativity, the product to be the result of an amazing experience. With the kind of projects I am working on, the process needs to be soulful, mindful, thoughtful so the product I put forth will be too.

I know how you feel Alisa, and sometimes creative work can indeed be an amazing experience. But sadly, that’s not always the case, otherwise I guess everyone would do it. Creativity can be incredibly frustrating — think of the days when things just won’t flow or fall into place, no matter how hard you try.

And sometimes creativity can be downright boring. Imagine doing the grouting on Notre Dame Cathedral or the Taj Mahal. Or proofreading War and Peace. Or stitching all the chainmail on the Bayeux Tapestry.

I used to draw elaborate Celtic knotwork designs. They took forever. It got so boring I listened to entire audiobooks, just to get through it. But people were impressed with the results – “I wouldn’t have the patience,” they said.

Last year, I visited a silversmith’s workshop, at Cockpit Arts. I saw some elaborately patterned silver bowls, and was told each one was hammered out of a single sheet of flat silver. Apparently, you have to do it one tiny tap at a time, otherwise the metal will split. “How long does it take?” I asked. “Weeks,” came the heartfelt answer.

In each of these examples, a boring, nit-picky, uninspiring process led to a product that was received with surprise and delight by its audience. I’d much rather have it that way round than vice versa.

I’ll leave the last word to the novelist Gustave Flaubert, who knew a thing or two about producing amazing work:

Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Are You Organised?

How organised are your working habits?

Do you find structure a help or hindrance to your creativity?

Any tips on getting organised for creative work?

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

If you could do with a little more clarity and focus in your creative work, have a look at What Daily Meditation Can Do for Your Creativity – my latest guest article for The 99%.

One of the most popular pieces I’ve written at lateral action is How Getting Nothing Done Can Make You More Productive, based on my experience of meditation retreats in a Buddhist monastery. This latest piece looks at the benefits of incorporating meditation into your daily routine, without having to disappear to a monastery in Tibet (or in my case Hertfordshire). Editor of The 99% Jocelyn Glei asked me to write about it after she saw me interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about how I established the habit of daily meditation. (Hint: it had nothing to do with willpower.)

Who’d have thought sitting doing nothing would attract so much interest?

Speaking of guest articles, I hope you’ve enjoyed the excellent contributions by our guest writers over the past few weeks. Expect more excellence from them (and others) in future.

And speaking of doing nothing, rest assured I’ve not forgotten the series on breaking through your creative blocks. I’ve recently been working on cool stuff behind the scenes for our members, but I’ll be picking up the series on Monday and tackling another of our readers’ creative blocks… stay tuned!

Of course things aren’t quite that simple; the irony was presumably intended, but it got me to thinking: what if they were? What if it really weren’t that complicated? What if it could be? What if, just possibly, for some people, some of the time – what if it really were that easy?

The Genius and the Tortured Artist

Of course, this is in part what the myth of the Creative Genius is based on – the idea that there are people with Special Talents who simply do not have to work at it. The river of original and striking thoughts is always flowing by their door. They spend their lives idly lounging, and once in a while offhandedly turning out a finished, polished masterpiece. Any idea becomes brilliant once they pour on some of their Special Sauce.

Now I will not deny that there are people with remarkable talents, but I’ve been around enough of them to know that the idea that they don’t have to work at it is preposterous. If they are at all serious about making the most of their gifts, they work like crazy at it.

Let’s take an extreme example: Mozart. The popular imagination has it that in brief interludes between gallivanting around being chirpy and mad, he whipped off stacks of exquisite music as easily as breathing. This image does not stand up to much scrutiny. Mozart wrote his 25th symphony (the opening music from the film Amadeus) at age 17; unbelievably talented, yes, but also driven. He was able to sustain a workload that defies comprehension for about 36 years before it killed him.

Which brings us to the second great popular myth about creativity: the Tortured Artist. He lives in squalor or at the very least chaos, pulling out his hair and rending his clothes searching for the elusive key which will unlock the door, release the flood. His life is mostly pain, but will all be worth it in the end when his genius is finally revealed – usually, tragically, posthumously – after he has died a pauper, never recognized in his lifetime but celebrated down through the ages.

The trouble is, of course, that like all good myths these are based to some extent on fact; there is some truth to them. Not much, but at least a grain. Things do come easily to some people, and others do struggle and suffer. Furthermore, like all good stories, they appeal to us because they engage our emotions, our dreams of effortless mastery, our pathos for the waste of unfulfilled possibility, our desire to feel something passionately enough to sacrifice everything for it.

Are We Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill?

I have noticed a trend of late that posits our creative demons as monsters to be confronted, dragons to be slain. We must don our armor and ride forth to do battle with them as warriors. Face the enemy, slay the beast. And I think that merits a closer look, because I am not sure it is helping us out as much as is perhaps intended.

Now, I do feel there is something to the ‘Warrior Spirit’ idea – staring down and overcoming our ‘resistance’ (to use Steven Pressfield’s excellent term), all the myriad distractions and excuses that keep us from realizing our creative potential… but I also have to ask myself sometimes if perhaps we’re not making a bit too much of it, for drama’s sake.

Are we not giving our fears and anxieties even more power over us when we envision them as fearful and terrible monsters? What if instead we imagine them small and weak and helpless? Better still, what if we simply ignore them? Tune them out, and create something amazing right under their noses?

I’m going to go a bit further. What if it’s really not such a big deal, this creativity thing? What if everyone has it – different flavors and strengths of it, to be sure, but still – what if it’s not special, and we who seek after it are not unusual or inherently remarkable?

What if this whole mythology of the tortured artist, the demons and monsters that stand in her path, the hero’s journey she must undertake to confront and slay them, is mostly self-aggrandizing – to make ourselves seem braver, stronger, and our work more dangerous, more significant? What if creativity is really not a Herculean labor, nor the preserve of certified geniuses, but rather the natural state of humankind?

It’s Only Creativity

There is a saxophonist in the town I used to live in, the father of a drummer friend and a kind of elder statesman of the jazz community there. He’s a wonderful player, one of the most elegant, relaxed and tasteful musicians I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Let’s call him Al, since that’s his name.

Al has a saying which he likes to unfurl at rehearsal, backstage, or whenever anyone seems nervous or too tightly wound:

Hey man, it’s only music, don’t freak out. No-one’s going to lose an arm…

In other words, if you screw something up, what’s the worst that will happen? Will you be immediately fired and driven from the stage? Not unless you’re working for James Brown. Will the entire audience get up, en masse, and walk out in disgust to smear your name all over town? Very unlikely.

Will they really throw things at you and point and laugh? Are they all sitting out there poised and just waiting to hear you make that first mistake so they can feel superior to you? Again, no, unless you’re sitting an audition for Juilliard, and then you’d better be prepared for it.

No, they’re here because they want to have a good time, they want to enjoy the show, they’ve paid to get in or bothered to show up, they’re invested in it. They are, in short, on your side. The only thing you can do to really screw up is to wreck their good time by not having one yourself.

There is really no great danger in making mistakes – but there is danger in being afraid to make them: if we are terrified to put a foot wrong, we may be too scared to begin.

I believe this is true of all creative endeavor. People generally want to enjoy art, dance, poetry; they wouldn’t bother with it otherwise. They don’t really want to pick it apart finding things to hate – and if they do, there’s not much we can do but pity them. Most people actually want you to succeed, they want you to entertain and uplift them. We could choose to feel overwhelmed by the pressure of this, but why not instead experience it as support, as encouragement?

Make Fun, Not War

Perhaps this approach is not for everyone. Some people do not seem to be in the art game for fun or enjoyment, and while I think this is sad I accept it and accept their goals and their process as being different, but not less valuable than my own.

However, if you’re like me and would like to have a less antagonistic, more relaxed and affectionate relationship with your creative demons, try something different with them next time. Rather than visualizing them as immense and terrifying, and then striding out to fight them to the death… try having some fun with them – imagine them in pink tutus or big purple bunny suits. Instead of a warrior, try being playful, like a child.

Then, while they’re distracted, get into something and let creativity happen. It isn’t all that difficult, if we get out of the way and stop making it harder for ourselves.

And remember: it’s only music (art/poetry/dance/sculpture/design/whatever you live to create)… no-one’s going to lose an arm.

Over to You

Have you ever been trapped by the myth of the Genius or the Tortured Artist? How did you escape?

Do you agree that having fun is conducive to creativity?

What difference does it make when you visualise your creative demons dancing around in pink tutus?

About the Author: tobias tinker is a musician and composer best known for his haunting score to the online Motion Comic Epic ‘Broken Saints’. This and his other music, including the ‘continuum’ solo piano series, can be found at Aeos Records. He writes about creativity and fearlessness on his own blog, Cliffjump!

All else being equal, the best story wins.

Another good reason to learn to tell better stories is because people don’t make rational decisions. They make them emotionally and then rationalize them by selectively focusing on everything that supports the decision they have made.

Learning to tell good stories is not an overnight exercise. However, you can start by observing good stories. I have chosen a few videos that showcase storytelling in action.

1. The Story of an Apple Seed

A short 2-minute video by Johnny Kelly that explains the story of an apple seed.

2. The Story of the Credit Crisis

Almost everyone is still affected by the US Credit Crisis. But what is the genesis of this crisis? Here is a quick video by Jonathan Jarvis that explains it brilliantly.

3. Social Media in Plain English

Social Media is the latest buzz everywhere. Here is a 4-minute video from the brilliant folks at Common Craft that explains social media.

4. Effects of High Blood Pressure on Your Body

This 3-minute video from Kreative Vistas brilliantly explains the effects of high blood pressure on your body. It is only 3-minute but it’s scary enough to shake you up and take guarding against high blood pressure seriously.

5. How Small Things Make a Huge Difference

This 2-minute video by folks at Stresslimitdesign was created for Environmental Defense Fund. The video is a call to action on saving energy.

Over to You

How do you tell the story of your business? How do you want to improve on it?

What’s a great narrative or metaphor to tell your own story?

Feel free to share a story or a link where you see great storytelling in action.

About the Author: Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. Rajesh has maintained a blog at Life Beyond Code since 2005 where he has published more than 1,400 articles. You can also find him on Twitter at @UpbeatNow

Instead of concentrating on doing many different things at the same time, you should choose a single important task and immerse yourself completely in it. This approach has been paraded in multiple productivity blogs and books, including here at Lateral Action. Indeed, the real power of human mind is the ability to focus on single things for extended periods of time. When and if that focus is interrupted, it may take up to 25 minutes to regain it. And if those interruptions happen multiple times a day, it shouldn’t be too difficult to see how disastrous this is to productivity.

In order to be able to take advantage of this remarkable power of focus, you need to first eliminate distractions. This means finding an environment that does not interrupt you, putting your mobile phone on silent and away from sight, closing facebook, email, twitter, and instant messaging programs.

Image by Chris Halderman

Ultradian Rhythms and Peak Performance

I assume most people who follow Lateral Action are aware of the importance of single-tasking and being able to focus on one specific thing without interruptions. However, these concepts and their benefits can be taken even further with the use of Ultradian Rhythms, meaning natural bodily rhythms that occur at intervals of less than 24 hours. In practice, most people experience this by feeling energized for an hour or two, and then rather quickly their minds start to wander, they feel drowsy, and unfocused. This is evident in feeling full of energy in the morning at work, getting things done, but in the afternoon you suddenly find it hard to concentrate on anything.

I myself experience Ultradian Rhythms very powerfully after work and late at night. Everytime I get home from work I feel too spent to do anything, but about an hour later I’m already feeling a lot better and find myself engaged in some activity. Then, around 8-9pm I am tired enough to fall asleep, but because it’s not that late yet I struggle to stay awake. After 10pm I’m again so full of energy that it’s impossible to even think about going to bed. The trick is to learn to harness these periods of high energy for productive purposes, and also to learn to wind down, relax, and replenish your energy during the “down” times.

How to Harness Your Ultradian Rhythms for Maximum Effectiveness

Image by Creativity103

For most people Ultradian Rhythms occur at intervals of 90-120 minutes throughout the whole day, during which they feel energized and are able to get things done. This is followed by a 30 minute stretch of low energy levels. Then the cycle starts again and you’re on your way towards another period of peak performance. How you can take advantage of this, is to set a timer when you start your work to, say, 50 minutes and use those 50 minutes to fully engage in one important activity. After the 50 minutes are up, set the timer for 10 minutes during which you can take a break from whatever you were doing. Then set yourself another 50 minute block of uninterrupted time, after which you can enjoy a longer 30 minute break. The ability to focus is like a muscle, and by training it this way you actually become better at it, and focusing on whatever you are engaged in becomes easier over time.

However, being great at immersing yourself in the task at hand is only one side of the coin. It is just as important to actively disengage yourself during the breaks as it is to focus on doing something. Being able to unfocus this way is a hugely unrated skill, but a complete disengagement from the task at hand is at the heart of being able to rest and properly replenish your energy levels.

There are three channels of activity that we humans have. Those are the cognitive, the physical, and the emotional. When you are taking a break, it’s important to change channel. If you’ve been engaged in an activity that requires a lot of thinking and brainwork, the break should disengage you from the cognitive channel. This can be done by e.g. going for a walk, doing some yoga, meditating, playing with your children, or even taking a 20 minute powernap, which happens to be my personal favorite.

A great way to consciously engage the emotional channel is through music. It has the wonderful quality of invoking our emotions. In a way, we don’t play music, but music plays us. Choose a few songs that resonate strongly with you, turn up to the volume on your speakers or headphones, close your eyes, relax, and simply experience the music flow through you. As an example, Life is Wonderful by Jason Mraz never fails to put a smile on my face, making me feel grateful just to be alive, and When Things Explode by UNKLE and Ian Astbury is simply epic.

It is reassuring to know, that even if you are tired and spent now, you will feel energized again after the break – but you need to let yourself to take the break. And this may be harder than it sounds. Especially for workaholics.

By timing the blocks of uninterrupted time you are already making a pact with yourself; agreeing that this period will be used in full engagement in one important task. So whenever you get those impulses to check instant messaging, email, or some news sites, you can say to yourself “later, I will do that during the break.” Or you can even assign an hour a day for things that require multi-tasking, such as making some phone calls, responding to email, or anything else that does not require full focus and consists of small tasks that can be batched together.

Energy Is More Important than Time

The most important message here is, that it’s not the time you have allotted for doing something, but how much energy you have for doing it that matters. And for this to work, you need to be aware of how you feel. You need to understand that your body needs rest instead of violently pushing through that feeling by taking yet another cup of coffee or eating a powerbar. By acknowledging and accepting that you have these natural bodily rhythms of high and low energy, you can take comfort from the fact that after taking a break you will be full of energy again, and can continue your work.

What I want to also emphasize is, that you really need to learn to listen to your body. Even if you use the 50+10/50+30 minute system – or any other one – you can never be sure at which point of the Ultradian Cycle you are when you start the timer in the beginning of a workday, or after returning from a lunch. So when you feel drowsy, your mind starts to wander, and it seems difficult to focus, take that 30 minute break with full understanding that the feeling of drowsiness is just temporary. And after the break you can start your timer again from the beginning.

Over to You

Do you notice your energy rising and falling during the day? How does this affect your work?

Have you ever used a timer to focus your attention and boost your productivity?

What kind of methods are you using to “change channels” or otherwise take your mind off the things at hand?

About the Author: Sami Paju is a Finnish blogger who studies how the human body and mind works, and how that knowledge can be used for greater personal growth, health, fitness, and living a happy life. You can find him at samipaju.com and on Twitter.

Image by eschipul

When Mark tossed out the challenge of sending in our creative blocks, I hit the keyboard faster than a speed demon in a red wagon. I was determined. I was going to tell someone. Once and for all.

I have performance anxiety.

I know, I know, that’s a dreaded thing to have. Especially if you’re considered something of a blogosphere phenomena that churns out great content by the bucketful.

But there you have it – some days, I just can’t write. It’s not for lack of ideas. It’s not for lack of ability. It’s just performance anxiety, a very simple creative block that stops you from achieving more.

It goes like this: I sit down, determined to write The Most Brilliant Post Ever. And about 137 words or so into my work, I stop and stare at what I’ve done. I look at it and realize that what I have written is in fact The Worst Blog Post Ever.

That was not the plan.

Why do I think it’s The Worst Blog Post Ever? Well, let me tell you:

It’s not inspiring enough.

It’s not witty enough.

It’s not smart enough.

It’s not good enough.

It’s not knock-your-socks-off-rock-your-world-awesomesauce.

That wouldn’t be a problem in itself. The problem is that I’m absolutely positive rock-your-world quality is what my readers expect. (Some of them have actually told me that’s what they expect. They’re very helpful that way.)

This is part of the problem with our passions, our hobbies and our jobs – doing what we love to do every day is a long-term exercise that isn’t exactly sustainable in guaranteed quality.

We all have our moments and moods. We get tired or lose our inspiration. We doubt ourselves. We have a hard time thinking of something smart to say. We’re not always the most thoughtful homo sapiens spouting wisdom with every breath we take.

Every single one of us, especially the artists and talented people out there, has off days where we either don’t feel up to it, don’t feel like doing it or just don’t feel it at all.

But to get that rock-your-world kind of talent going on, you gotta feel it.

Solution: Stop the Show

Performance anxiety generally means that you feel stressed out because you have to do something in front of people. There may be official judges whose job it is to gauge how well you’ve performed. It might be a competition in which you have to beat out all other hopefuls (who certainly want to beat you). Or it may simply be that your audience judges you every time you step out to perform.

Whatever the reason, whatever the situation, there’s a guaranteed way to get through this: by not performing in the first place. No performance, no anxiety. Problem solved.

As I wrote to Mark, I didn’t always have this problem. I told him how the more popular my blog became, the harder it became to write. I could easily see for myself that my performance anxiety increased in relation to how much pressure to perform I felt I was under.

Impress 7 readers? No problem. 700? Can do. But 7,000? With more readers lining up every day?

Yeah. Blank page syndrome for sure.

So I ripped my eyes off the blank page. I quit trying. I said, “Screw it.” And then what did I do?

I wrote.

No, really. I couldn’t write for other people, but I could write for myself without any pressure at all. I’d work on some fiction, or I would pen off an email to a friend, or I’d answer a question in a forum or comment around the blogosphere. I could write website copy, or an article or an essay, if I wanted.

No problem. No sweat.

We All Did It Because We Loved It

This isn’t a post on how to cure your performance anxiety. Mark’s there for that, and he can help you far more than I can.

But this is a post on how much we screw ourselves up because we lose touch with the fact that we started doing this in the first place because we love doing it.

That’s the key – remembering that we started what we do for us, and not for anyone else. When each of us began – writers, designers, musicians, artists… we didn’t have anyone but ourselves. It was a private performance. We didn’t have readers yet. We didn’t have clients yet. We didn’t have fans yet, or traffic or customers or anything.

We had passion, and talent, and a need to do what we loved because we loved doing it. We had to do something with it or we’d burst.

I’m not cured of my performance anxiety yet, but I’m learning to love writing again. This post, for example, I wrote just for me. I didn’t think about how many people would read it, or where I would post it, or who would comment. I wrote it because Mark asked me to give a shot at the kind of performance that’s completely anxiety-free: the one you do for yourself.

It was easy. It was fun. And it absolutely flew by.

How About You?

Have you ever gotten jammed from performance anxiety? What did you do to get over it?

About the Author: Want to read more on how to overcome blogger problems that hold you back? Check out James’ blog, Men with Pens, where you’ll find very little performance anxiety and a ton of great tips and advice to help you succeed.

Image by the sea the sea

We’ve all heard someone say things like, “Everyone is an artist” and “We’re all born naturally creative.” But most of us smile and nod (and think to ourselves, “Yeah, right!”) when we hear something like that, much in the way that we do when someone says something like, “Everyone is beautiful – fat, thin, tall, short, etc.”

We’ve been so conditioned to believe in societal definitions and “rules” about what art, success and beauty looks like that it’s often hard for us to fathom any other alternative, and so we spend our time actively pursuing more knowledge, following other people in our field, and trying hard to create or be something that fits those societal definitions of success. But this only dulls our creativity. As Keith Johnstone, originator of the Impro theatre movement says, “Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.”

We’re All Naturally Creative

The paradox is that, when you’re being yourself, rather than trying to imitate success, you’ll be your most original and creative. This natural creativity can’t be learned – it’s already there! We don’t need to do anything to increase or improve it. What we have to do to unleash it is to UNLEARN what we’ve been taught about design, creativity and life itself. You have to unlearn your education about how art and life SHOULD be, in order to allow your natural creative genius to emerge.

The dullness was not an inevitable consequence of age, but of education… I began to think of children not as immature adults, but of adults as atrophied children.

Keith Johnstone

Reconnect with Your Natural Creative Genius

Ultimately, that part of ourselves that’s trying so hard to be creative, original and successful is on our side – it’s trying to do something for us, so we don’t need to fight it. I like Martha Beck’s explanation of the conflict around creativity and self-expression that we often feel. Martha explains that we have two parts to ourselves: an Essential Self and a Social Self. Our Essential Self is the part that is innate – the person we’d be regardless of whether we’re brought up in the rural Himalayas or central London. It knows what we love and who we’re meant to be, it holds our natural creativity, and it’s main agenda is our happiness. Our Social Self, on the other hand, is the part that’s developed since we were born into the world, and it’s concerned with finding out the “rules” of our tribe.

You see, humans are a species that are born into the world completely dependent on the adults of our species, in order to survive. So we learn, from an early age, to look to others to find out the “rules” for survival. And we’re a tribal species – we thrive when we’re connected and collaborating with others. Deep down, we all believe in “safety in numbers” and fear rejection by the tribe. So the Social Self is the part of you that’s looking out for your safety, and wanting to ensure that you’re accepted by your tribe.

So there’s this tension that can develop, between your Essential Self that wants you to be happy, creative and fully self-expressed, and your Social Self that wants to ensure that you’re safe and accepted by your tribe. Ultimately, the only thing standing between us and our creative genius is fear – fear of failure and fear of rejection.

Instead of seeing people as untalented, we can see them as phobic.

Keith Johnstone

How to Switch Your Creativity (Back) On

1. Relax

Stress triggers biochemical changes in the brain and body that narrow our visual perception and our thinking, making it harder to be creative, because we can perceive much less information. Use muscle relaxation or breathing exercises to relax yourself when you feel yourself getting stressed.

2. Imagine Yourself as Naturally creative

Some businessmen who had showed up as very dull on work-association tests were asked to imagine themselves as happy-go-lucky hippy types. They were re-tested while they were in that persona, and they showed up as far more imaginative. Create a vivid picture of yourself as a naturally creative, relaxed, playful, spontaneous and imaginative person, step into the picture and see the world through your own eyes, and then create and respond from that place.

3. Switch Off Your Social Self

We all have that Social Self part that’s continuously chattering in our minds, about all the “what ifs”, catastrophizing, and making us fearful. Schiller said, “…In the case of the creative mind, the intellect has withdrawn it’s watcher from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude…” So make a conscious decision to put your critical voice aside for a while, knowing that you can do the critical review of your work afterwards.

Some great ways of gently pushing your Social Self’s chatter to the background include meditation practice, listening to music or comedy while you’re working, or holding your tongue still by placing the tip of your tongue up against the front of your palette. It’s been found that when we chatter to ourselves, our tongue moves ever so slightly inside our mouths. Holding it still stops the chatter!

4. Don’t Try to Be Original.

As soon as you’re trying to be original, you’re moving away from your natural creative genius and you’ll start producing imitations of success, which just never have the same compelling quality as natural, raw genius. Be completely in the moment, be deeply curious, observe what is and respond… and see what happens.

An artist who is being inspired is being obvious. He’s not weighing one idea against another. He’s accepting his first thoughts… The best ideas should be as effortless as perceiving.

Keith Johnstone

Unleashing your natural creativity isn’t just about being able to produce more awesome design work or writing. Getting out of your Social Self’s fear and returning to your natural creativity will give you a whole new perspective on life and your world will seem more fun, more full, more beautiful, more mysterious, and more compelling.

About the Author: Through her Bottom-line Bookclub, “Resource Miner,” Cath Duncan offers accelerated learning programs for professionals who want to develop the Agile Living Strategies for thriving in these turbulent times. You can follow Cath’s blog at www.mineyourresources.com and on Twitter she’s @cathduncan

Image by Bryant Hill

If you’re a creative entrepreneur looking to make connections and promote your business on the web, Chris Brogan is one of the people you need to pay attention to

Chris is an eleven year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at chrisbrogan.com. He is co-author with Julien Smith of the New York Times bestselling book Trust Agents.

Chris is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

He was kind enough to answer the following questions for Lateral Action readers.

1. Who or what is a Trust Agent?

Trust Agents are those people who’ve mastered the new communications tools of the web to build relationships ahead of the sale. They’re people who understand that the web is just a medium, but it’s the best medium for starting and maintaining relationships that yield.

2. Trust Agents is an ‘internet book’ but it reads more like a guide to social etiquette than a technical manual. How come?

We wrote a book about the soul of the new machine, not a manual for how to use some fleeting piece of software. Trust Agents is every bit a business book, not an instruction manual. Hopefully, it will stand up long after books about Twitter seem dated and silly.

3. When I talk to some of my long-standing friends about my new Internet adventures – working, networking, collaborating, and partnering with people I’ve never met in person – they get very concerned. “It’s all very well” they say, “but how do you know whether you can trust these people?” What would you say to them?

You can’t trust people blindly, just because they’re on the internet. 70% of people believe all reviews they read on the Internet without questioning their source. And yet, we find that it’s easier to agree with these people, because they come off as smart and as someone who has similar views. The net opened us up to find people who think the way we do, and that’s valuable (to an extent).

4. A recurrent theme of the book is that if you are generous and helpful, people are likely to reciprocate, but you shouldn’t just give in order to get something back. How can we get the balance right?

The balance is something only you can answer. If you’re giving to be kind and helpful, YOU know that. If you’re giving to hope and hook someone into giving back, you know that it’s not the best way. That’s a human issue, not a business one, and yet, we put it in because we know that people could use the reminder.

5. Once upon a time artists and other creators had to curry favour with gatekeepers (agents, editors, curators etc) if they wanted to get their work in front of an audience. Now, you’re encouraging people to use the internet to “gatejump” and “make your own game”. How?

How does one gatejump? They create without needing the status. They make their own products, put them out on the net, and direct the right like-minded people to participate. In this way, they don’t need people’s permission to produce something they think is of value.

6. You work famously long hours. How would you answer people who say “OK, I see the value of social media, but I’m already pushed for time just running my business. How will I find time to do all of that as well?”.

We reward those things that reward us. Whenever we start working on our fitness, we tend to go to the gym more often. When we use a pickup line that works, we use that more and more. Spending time on the web is easy, once you see yield. The question might be better asked: “Why do you keep putting time and effort into things that don’t work?”

Chris Brogan uses social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. He’ll teach you to do this yourself via his book Trust Agents, his blog chrisbrogan.com and on Twitter @chrisbrogan.

If you have a creative block you’d like some help with, tell us about it – details in the first article in the series.

Sometimes it can feel like a constant battle to earn enough money to justify spending time on creative work. This problem can be particularly acute if you work in a creative medium with little obvious commercial potential.

This kind of block doesn’t just affect your non-commercial work however – it can lead you to resent the work you do to pay the bills, and bring up resistance to doing it. “Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t!”

So I wasn’t surprised that this issue was raised by several Lateral Action readers when we invited you to tell us about your creative blocks.

“This idea/piece of work is not (or will not, depending on whether or not I’ve actually started it yet) get me any closer to my goals, and it certainly won’t pay the rent. Therefore, I’m not going to pursue it – I’m going to do some other thing that is far more practical/that will generate income.”

(Michael Radcliffe, Artbizness)

“Biz is so slow, I seem to only gravitate towards only the ideas (no matter how stupid or unwanted) that may make money right NOW. Creativity is discarded for necessity then I freeze! Help

(Ray Harvey)

“Starting in college, I intentionally left my talented painting side to study advertising and design because I wanted to be sure that I could support myself in the world. After successful 20 years in advertising, I was kicked to the curb when my employer started loosing accounts and couldn’t afford to pay me. I had just moved across the country, bought a new house in my new city based on my new salary. And then boom. The housing market dropped, there were no jobs and I have all this time to paint. Yet, all I can do when I’m not taking on freelance work is stayed glued to the computer looking for a job or keeping up with all the social media. Because it feels like work.

I’d love to rid my head at least a few hours a day to paint again.”

(Anonymous)

“The block of Time=Money has ’stuck’ me up over the years and i have scattered energy trying to do everything for everybody, not creating enough money to do the creative.

(Oya)

Guys, I know how you feel.

My biggest creative passion is poetry – and I’m scratching my head to think of a creative medium with less commercial potential than that. But according to Hugh MacLeod’s Sex and Cash theory, even movie stars and rock stars face the same basic dilemma:

THE ‘SEX & CASH’ THEORY

The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.

A good example is Phil, a New York photographer friend of mine. He does really wild stuff for the small, hipster magazines—it pays virtually nothing, but it allows him to build his portfolio. Then he’ll leverage that to go off and shoot some retail catalogues for a while. Nothing too exciting, but it pays the bills.

One year John Travolta will be in an ultrahip flick like Pulp Fiction (“Sex”), another he’ll be in some forgettable, big- budget thriller like Broken Arrow (“Cash”).

I’m thinking about the young writer who has to wait tables to pay the bills, in spite of her writing appearing in all the cool and hip magazines . . . who dreams of one day not having her life divided so harshly.

Well, over time the “harshly” bit might go away, but not the “divided.”

This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.

And nobody is immune. Not the struggling waiter, nor the movie star.

(Hugh MacLeod, Ignore Everybody)

After years of struggling with this issue myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three basic options:

1. Put Creativity and Cash in Separate Boxes

This is where you make a very clean distinction between the work you do for money and your creative passion. It’s the classic “Work 9-to-5 and write/paint/play in a band in the evenings” approach.

The great thing about this is that it keeps your creative passion fresh – it usually comes as a welcome relief from your other activities, and you’re in no danger of seeing it as “just a job”. Frankly, it can also be a bit of a relief not to have to do challenging and potentially scary creative work all day every day.

The big problem, as the examples above show, is that it can be hard to justify spending time on your creative work, when other responsibilities are calling. It feels like fiddling while Rome burns.

Obviously, it helps if you’re earning enough cash to pay all the bills. If that’s not the case, then you may need to prioritise solving that problem first! But even if you’re struggling financially, you can probably afford to spend your Sunday mornings on your own creative pursuits.

You may find some of the suggestions helpful from last week’s block – “Not enough time”. But where money’s concerned, the difficulty isn’t just about finding time, but justifying spending it on noncommercial work. Because it feels like you could/should always be ‘doing more’ on your day job or business.

One way is to sit down and work out how many hours a week you can realistically spend on your creative work while having little or no impact on your other responsibilities. Then schedule that time in your diary, just as you would any other commitment, and stick to it!

If you still find it hard to escape that nagging feeling that you ’should’ be more gainfully employed, have a read of Foolish Productivity and ask yourself whether you’re more effective in scenario (a) where you spend all day every day on ‘busy work’, or scenario (b) where you regular take time off to refresh your imagination and recharge your enthusiasm with other pursuits.

I think you know the answer to that one.

If you’re one of those people who find it harder to keep promises to yourself than to other people, then why not make use of that tendency – by making a public commitment to your creative work. I did this a couple of years ago, when I announced my New Year’s resolution to practice daily meditation on my Wishful Thinking blog. It worked a treat.

But you don’t necessarily need to announce your intentions to the world at large. Here are some other options:

• Join a class – one reason why I attend classes at the Poetry School is that I’m more likely to prioritise writing poetry when I spend time with like-minded people. Especially when it’s my turn to bring a poem to the workshop.
• Join an online group for mutual encouragement and support. A great example is National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of writers gather each year and commit to writing a novel in 30 days!
• Find a ‘work buddy’ – someone who shares your creative passion, and who could also do with some help in the motivation department. Both of you make a commitment to spending X hours per week on your creative project, and hold each other accountable.

2. Earn Cash from Your Creative Work

This is the Holy Grail for many creators – getting paid to do what you love. Earning thousands of dollars from each of your paintings, novels, gigs or movie appearances is very nice work – if you can get it.

This is why so many aspiring creators daydream of the day when they’ll be discovered by a discerning and well-connected agent/manager/editor/impresario. This Good Fairy waves the magic wand and takes care of all that nasty business stuff like marketing, PR, negotiation and sales, leaving you to get on with the sexy creative stuff. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is – for most of us.

That’s not to say you can’t earn money from your creative work – just that relying on the Good Fairy to appear isn’t the best way to make it happen. If that’s your strategy, you might as well play the lottery while you’re at it, the odds are probably better.

Fortunately, these days there are a lot more paths open to earning money from your creativity than even a few years ago. Free publishing platforms like WordPress allow you to reach a global audience from your living room. Manufacture-and-ship-on-demand services allow you to produce your own books, CDs, posters, T-shirts and pretty much anything else you can think of, without getting your hands dirty. And low-cost e-commerce solutions allow you to take secure online payment instantly from your customers.

So what are you waiting for?

Well, there’s a little more to it than that. (Which is why we’ve – cough, cough – created an entire course on the subject.) But if you look around at people like Hugh MacLeod, John Unger, Natasha Wescoat, Hazel Dooney and David Airey, you’ll see it’s possible to generate a good living by selling your work online.

No, it’s not easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But it can be done – with hard work and a little creativity. Which brings me on to option 3 …

3. Take a Creative Approach to Earning Cash

This is where things get really interesting. Rather than just producing creative stuff and then selling it, you take a creative approach to the whole business of earning a living. In other words, you become a creative entrepreneur.

A quick glance at the websites of the artists I just mentioned will show you that they aren’t just in the business of selling art, but their whole marketing and web presence is an expression of their creativity.

The options for creative entrepreneurship include:

Take a creative approach to marketing your creative work

E.g. releasing music online for free, in order to generate buzz and sell concert tickets. Or publishing cartoons online for free, in order to sell a printed comic book.

Earn cash from something ‘next door’ to your creative passion

This is the route I’ve taken, by stepping sideways from my own creative passion (poetry) to provide coaching and training for creative professionals of all kinds.

Build a business to help your fellow enthusiasts

This is one of the ‘Career Renegade’ paths recommended by Jonathan Fields:

Very often, that thing we most love to do also requires a certain amount of stuff. Beaders need beads, bead boards, thread, crimps and more. Rock climbers need harnesses, shoes, chocs, nuts, cams, and beyond. It’s not unusual for an entire, equally passionate subculture to revolve around that gear. If you look deep enough, you can often find gaps in demand for that year, stuff, or “schwag” that supports the main activities.

Career Renegade

Treat business as a creative medium

This means adopting the entrepreneurial mindset, and constantly looking out for trends, problems and market opportunities. It’s also about coming up with innovative business models that deliver outsized value for your customers – which can lead to outsize profits and plenty of spare ‘creative time’ for you.

How Do You Resolve the ‘Creativity v Cash’ Dilemma?

Which of the three paths work best for you? Why?

How do you resolve the tension between creativity and cash?

Any tips for helping others do the same?

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

If you have a creative block you’d like some help with, tell us about it – details in the first article in the series.

One of the biggest challenges facing many creative people is simply finding the time to pursue their creative interests, in the midst of the demands of everyday life. Strictly speaking, lack of time doesn’t qualify as a creative block – but when we say we “don’t have time” for something, it’s often an indication that we aren’t making it a priority.

This is a very common issue, so I wasn’t surprised when it cropped up in a comment from Sholeh Johnston when we invited you to tell us about your creative blocks:

Hi Mark,

While my 9-5 job is quite creative (arts manager) I struggle to find time to write outside of work hours, writing being what I consider my first and favourite creative pursuit.

When I get home there is always something else to do – housework, seeing friends, spending time with my partner, catching up the news etc. Or else I’m “too tired”.

Suggestions and strategies would be great! Aside from “STOP PROCRASTINATING” )

Sho

Hi Sho,

OK, I promise not to say “STOP PROCRASTINATING”.

Here are some suggestions that have worked well for many of my clients (and me!) facing the same challenge. Treat it like a menu – choose the items that appeal to you and try them out. As with all good meals, you’ll probably need to combine several elements to get the balance right.

Mark

Build on Your Achievements

Before we look at what you could do differently to create more time for your writing, I’d like to know more about how you have already done this in the past.

You see, when I look at your blog, one of the first things I notice is that you’ve been blogging regularly since 2004 – longer than me, and longer than many other bloggers. That tells me right away that you are capable of a lot of dedication and persistence in pursuing your writing. So the first thing I’d suggest is that you pause for a moment and give yourself a little credit for it.

Now, I don’t know all the details of your situation, so it’s possible that your work and other responsibilities have become more demanding recently, so maybe you haven’t been under the same time pressure for the past 6 years of writing.

But even if that’s the case, there must have been many times when other things were calling for your attention – and you somehow managed to tune them out long enough to get on with your writing.

How did you do that?

Can you recall a time when you were tempted to give in to distractions or outside pressures, but managed to ignore them and focus on your work? How?

Whatever it was you did – supposing you start doing more of that?

You Can’t Do Everything

It sounds like you’re confronting the fact that you can’t do everything in life. Whatever you choose to do, there’s “always something else to do”. This is why the stories of great creators often involve hard decisions and sacrifices – at least at the beginning.

Like the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope. His day job in the Post Office meant he had very little spare time in which to realise his literary ambitions. His solution was to get up at 5.30 every morning and write several hundred words before breakfast. He also wrote on trains while traveling for work. Eventually, he earned enough from his novels to give up his job – but most of his 37 novels were written while he was a full-time employee.

A few years ago, I was in a similar situation: I was studying for a Master’s degree, running my coaching and therapy business, editing a poetry magazine and getting married, all of which required a lot of my time! And the middle of all of that, I decided I wanted to start a blog.

Reluctantly, I took Trollope’s route, and decided to sacrifice some sleep by getting up to write at 6.30 every morning. This was pretty hard for me, as I had always struggled to wake up early in the mornings. But the blog was important enough to make it worth the effort. (If you want to know how I did it, read How to Become an Early Riser by Steve Pavlina.)

I’m not saying you necessarily have to get up and write in the early mornings; that may not be the best time for you (see the next section for how to find out). But it sounds like you need to cut down on at least one activity in your life if you’re to find time to write.

Here’s the list of things you say are getting in the way of your writing:

• housework
• seeing friends
• spending time with my partner
• catching up with the news

Which of these would it be easiest to cut down on?

How much time could you create for your writing by doing so?

Write When You Have Most Energy

You say you’re often “too tired” to write. I know how you feel. To write properly, I need to be very alert – which means I need to make sure I write at the times of day when I’m naturally most awake.

All human beings have circadian rhythms of arousal and rest during the daily 24 hour cycle. For most people, this means they have plenty of energy and mental focus during the morning, feel drowsy at some point during the afternoon, and get a ’second wind’ of energy in the early evening.

So I always try to keep my mornings free for writing, when I know the words will flow easily; and I don’t even try to write after lunch. But some writers are able to work better during the evenings than the mornings.

If you’re a ’morning person’ then you’ve basically got two choices to make the most of your optimal writing time: get up early to write on weekdays; or keep at least one morning free for writing at weekends.

If you’re an ’evening person’ then it should be easier for you to write in the evenings after work.

Whichever your natural preference, you’d be only human if you felt too tired to write after a long day at work. In that case, if you really want to make the most of your evenings, you could try having a power nap for 15-20 minutes when you get in from work. According to neuroscientist John Medina, this will ’reset’ your brain and boost your productivity by 34%!

Even though I’m a morning person, I find that a power nap can work wonders if I really have to crank out some writing in the afternoon or evening.

Ring-Fence Time for Writing

One of the things that makes it hard to prioritise writing (or a similar creative activity) is that most of the other tasks demading your attention have someone else ready to fight for them: your boss wants you to do your work; your family want you to do your share of the housework; your friends will miss you if you disappear off the social scene.

But who is there to champion the cause of your writing? Only you. So you need to stand up for it!

Here’s how:

1. Set aside time for writing. For example, 2 hours on a Saturday morning. Mark it in the diary! And tell your partner and/or anyone else who needs to know you’ll be unavailable (and who can encourage you to keep you promise to yourself).
2. Write down all the excuses you could give yourself for not doing your writing at the appointed time.
3. Now write down all of the genuine reasons you could have for not doing it. E.g. if my kids need urgent attention, that trumps writing for me. But not much else does.
4. When it’s time to write, switch off your phone, e-mail, internet etc. Close the door. And write.
5. If you do miss a day’s writing, give it back to yourself.

Make the Most of Odd Moments

You can take another leaf out of Anthony Trollope’s book, by copying his habit of writing on the train, in ’dead time’ between his other tasks.

I live in London, where lots of people complain about the time it takes to get anywhere by Tube train. Not me. Whenever I head into town, I take a book or notebook, and look forward to an hour’s reading or writing on the journey. Another bonus of the Tube is that no-one can ring me on my mobile while I’m down there. And of course, as this is Britain, there’s no danger of my fellow passengers trying to engage me in conversation.

Where are the odd scraps of time during your week?

Could a notebook (or netbook) transform them into blissful oases of writing time for you?

Get (More) Organised

Another big change I made in my life at the time I started my first blog was to get more organised in my working habits. This meant I became much more efficient – and freed up extra time for important things like writing.

You may already be super-organised, in which case feel free to ignore this suggestion. But if not, then improving your time management skills will reduce your level of tiredness, as well as creating more writing time.

You’ll find plenty of advice on how to fine-tune your daily workflow for maximum creativity in my e-book Time Management for Creative People. It’s free to download and share, so you’re welcome to pass it on to anyone else who might find it helpful.

What Solutions Can You Think Of?

Have you ever successfully made time for your own creative projects in the midst of a busy schedule? How?

What advice can you offer to someone who’s struggling to find time for creative work?

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.