Accidental Creative

Systems

This week I did a Whiteboard Session for my eCoaching members about productivity systems.
The hardest thing, especially for creative folk, is to stick with a system.
The most important thing, especially for creative folk, is to stick with a system. Period.

The system is not important. There are bazillions of productivity systems. Some are better than others, yes, but most people I’ve met have never stayed with one long enough to know.
A few years ago I decided that I was going to stick with a system until my life started morphing around it. It has completely revolutionized me.
I’m just saying.

On My Tombstone…

It caught me by surprise when Anna Farmery from The Engaging Brand podcast asked me how I would want to be remembered. Fortunately, this is an exercise I did about a year ago as I was trying to gain some clarity about what I should be doing. (Not so coincidentally, it was a month or two before I launched “The Accidental Creative.”)
The phrase that hit me quickly and hard was:
“He loved well,
He died empty.”
I now have this phrase on the wall of my office at work along with another phrase that soon followed:
“Dead men don’t watch clocks.”

I guess the gist of it is that I want to be completely empty when I die. I don’t want a single word, idea, act or concept unexpressed. Whatever I have in me, I want to get it out. It’s not for me anyway.
Have you gone through this process? Have you thought about the guiding principle that rules your day? Do you have a framework?

Smoking

I was reading in a book called “No Man Is An Island” this morning, and came across a passage that hit me between the eyes. It said that too many people desire to be the smoke, but don’t really want to be the flame. They want to be the results more than they want to be who they are. They are more interested in what they produce.
Ouch.
Somewhere in this is the key to creative productivity. Once we let go of the ambition that causes anxiety and allow ourselves to be who we are, we find ourselves producing things we couldn’t have imagined otherwise. When we are ruled by pragmatics and results, we are being reactive to the world around us and we will never fully realize our potential.
It’s very counter-intuitive, but very true in my experience.

Energy…

Here’s an interesting article on energy management.

Lifehack.org

How to generate killer ideas

Here’s an article on how to generate great ideas.

A Technique For Producing Ideas

Assumption

I’m leading an offsite ideation session for an organization this weekend. We just finished the first session, and I continue to be reminded of how important it is that we weed assumptions out of our organizational behavior.
Assumption can absolutely kill initiative, drive, and ultimately rhythm within organizations. When we are using the same words and speaking different languages, we often find ourselves experiencing dissonance of the most sinister kind - the kind that hides behind itself.
Are your assumptions ruling you? Are you operating by possibility or pragmatics?

I need to be innovative now!

I was delighted when Todd asked me to input to the blog, this is one of my favourite sites because it oozes passion…something that I feel is lacking in the world today..

I was reading a great article about conceptualists and experimentalists in Wired magazine written by Dan Pink about how people are all different and your best work can happen at any time. Some people such as Picasso(26), Mozart (30)produced their best work young and yet Mark Twain(50), Cezanne(64) and Beethoven(54) blossomed late. In this world of an increasing desire for innovation people feel the pressure to produce their best work almost from Day 1. But recognise that your talents grow, some people take time to develop their style, to fully understand what they are really passionate about. For many their best work only comes when talent is matched with life experience and yet others are best when raw and fresh. The world needs both and remember don’t judge people by their age….their best may still be to come!

The great thing is that you will never know whether you have peaked until you have lived your life. So for me this is inspirational, create everyday…be passionate…let your talent shine through and understand that no matter the age…you best work may well be waiting inside you, waiting for the right time to surprise the world.

And a mighty “thank you” to…

Thanks to Mick Winters for this cool review of the AC podcasts!

(Goods For You BLOG)