Get new episodes delivered automatically. Subscribe to AC podcasts in iTunes or by RSS.

Have you ever considered how – over time – you tend to become more like the people you spend time with?

A few days ago I had the privilege of giving the keynote talk at the Client Advisor Awards in Atlanta. In the crowd was an amazing group of professionals dedicated to serving standing in the gap for their clients. While it was fun getting to share my thoughts with the group about how to be more innovative in their work, the greatest joy of the night was getting to see my friend riCardo Crespo recognized as an award winner for his work as SVP/Global Creative Chief at 20th Century Fox.

riCardo is one of my favorite people in the world, and I don’t say that lightly. He is someone I aspire to be more like, because he exemplifies professionalism, is a spark plug of creative insight, and has the ability to reframe a conversation with just a few words. I take every opportunity I can to be around him. (In fact, I’ll be in Los Angeles this weekend to speak to a group from Intel and riCardo and I have blocked off time – in the midst of our crazy schedules – to spend more time together.)

Why? Because we inspire and challenge one another to be better at what we do, and that’s important enough to make time together a priority.

As you survey the broad array of relationships in your life, do you spend time with people who…

• challenge you to be better?
• call out your BS and don’t let you coast?
• model professionalism to you?
• question your assumptions?
• root for your success?
• mourn your failures?
• introduce you to new ideas?
• share their doubts or struggles?
• …???

Who are these people for you? One thing I’ve learned about relationships is that I tend to become more like the people I spend the most time with. Because of that, I try to spend as much time as possible with people I want to be more like.

So a few questions:
– Do you have someone / some people in your life who meet the above criteria, and…
– What other criteria would you add to above list?

Is our over-emphasis on self-esteem detrimental to creativity, risk and innovation?

A few years ago my children started playing organized sports. It’s a kind of unsettling awakening, especially with the first child. You suddenly become aware of the gaps in your parental instruction. (Wait! My kid doesn’t know to put his glove in the air when the other kid throws the…ooh…bloody nose. Yikes.)

One of the other surprises came with the first game. Much to our son’s dismay, the authorities-that-be weren’t keeping score. (Funny how the kids always do, even when the grown-ups don’t. He knew that his team was 5-5 that year.) I’m not arguing that beginner sports leagues should be keeping score, it’s just one data point for me in a larger dynamic that’s I’ve noticed over the past few decades.

Beginning in the 1960′s, there was a concerted social effort to increase the level of self-esteem in children. Our kids, it was believed, would perform much better if they only felt better about themselves. The grading system was re-considered, with some classrooms getting rid of failing grades. Children (like me!) were told things like “you can be anything you want to be”, and “if you just believe in yourself, you can move mountains.” In sports, everyone got a trophy just for showing up. Even for mostly showing up.

Here’s the problem with much of this: it’s not true. It doesn’t reflect reality. Truth is, I can’t be anything I want to be, and neither can you. We all have limitations – yes, flexible ones, but limitations nonetheless. We have specific strengths and specific weaknesses. We have things we are innately great at, and things we’d be better off shying away from. Even running away from.

I believe that, contrary to its intent, this self-esteem push can be significantly detrimental to creativity. (NOTE: this is not scientific, just observational. For a more detailed analysis of the studies related to optimism, self-esteem and depression read The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman.)

Here are a few thoughts:

It has de-emphasized the value of contribution and has emphasized the importance of recognition. If I can be anything I want to be, then I’m going to gravitate toward the things that will make me famous, no? Rather than zeroing in on the activities and contributions that might allow me to offer something of value to society, I’m going to focus more on how I can get what I feel is owed to me by right of existence. I need regular feedback in order to know where I “stand”. Social media is important because it allows near immediate feedback regarding whatever feeds this need.

Truth is, I can’t be anything I want to be, and neither can you. We all have limitations – yes, flexible ones, but limitations nonetheless.

It has cultivated a fear of failure. Contrary to the thought that a belief that I’m “special” will encourage fearlessness, this notion that I’m truly capable of anything might make me less likely to do something that will violate this self-perception. I will take calculated risks that allow me to prove what I believe I already know. I sell out my true giftedness for the sake of re-affirming my belief that I’m “special”.

It sets unrealistic expectations about life, and what it takes to succeed. Life is unfair. Some people are born with opportunities and privileges that others aren’t. Creating is very hard, and failure is inevitable. Some people toil away at brilliant work for a lifetime and receive little recognition, while others back into opportunities and are widely acclaimed. Recognition and feeling good about yourself are fine, but I believe it should be sourced in doing the work rather than in the recognition of others. Recent studies have shown a hockey-stick-like elevation in the rates of reported depressive episodes since the 1960′s. Some are attributing this to the incongruity between our expectations of what life should be and the reality of what life is. Hmm.

It’s something to consider. In our attempts to encourage risk-taking and adventure, are we actually accomplishing the opposite?

Questions:
have you seen any of these dynamics, and…
…have they affected you or your peers, and…
…if so, what do you do about it?

Comment here.

Epipheo Studios has one mission: using the medium of video to create epiphanies that inspire change (Epiphany + Video = Epipheo). In the past few years they have catapulted from upstart to one of the most buzzed about companies in the online video space. Their videos have garnered tens of millions of views and they help companies like Google, Facebook, NBC, P&G, and Yelp share epiphanies with potential customers and explain new products in a way that inspires action. (Plus they created the very cool book trailer for The Accidental Creative.)

I recently had the chance to connect with two of the founding partners of Epipheo, Jeremy Pryor and Jon Collins, to chat about how they got their start, their methodology, and how creatives of all walks can apply their approach to story in order to create more compelling work.

A few of my takeaways from the interview:

• Epipheo began as a hunch at the convergence of new technologies (online video + social media + rapid technological change). Their first foray into the marketplace was creating work that appealed to them personally. Where is there opportunity to create something – even as spec work – that appeals to you, but could provide a platform for more work?
• While they create videos for a wide range of companies and products, their basic methodology – telling a story – remains the same. What is your core methodology, and how can you systemize it so that it delivers the crux of your value every time?
• Epipheo has a larger mission than just making videos for clients. They see themselves as being on a mission to help companies recover their original epiphany and communicate it effectively so that it inspires change in the world. What is your core “why”, and how does it infiltrate your work everyday?

Listen to the full interview with Jeremy and Jon below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I (strongly) agree that the future belongs to the curious, but would add that so does the present. Curious people are able to parse experience and recognize Reality behind reality; what’s truly going on in patterns and systems. They are able to ask great questions, and are willing to trade them in for better ones when they’re not satisfied with the answers.

So with that in mind, how can we stay poised, leaning forward, and in a state of productive curiosity? Here are a few things that I find helpful:

1. Be vigilant. Curious people are forever on the lookout for new bits of stimuli to spark their imagination. It’s easy to go through the day without ever stopping to notice the millions of little mysteries that play out right in front of us. We stop wondering and cease to pay attention to our questions, and our curiosity engine shuts down.

What are you noticing today that piques your curiosity and wonder?

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. - Albert Einstein

2. Bias to “yes”. The world teaches us to be back on our heels. We hear the echoes of teachers, parents and peers telling us how dangerous “things” are and how we need to “protect” ourselves, and how we should never talk to strangers. (Ever!) We can easily develop a bias to “no”, meaning that our first response to any new venture or experience is “no” unless strongly convinced otherwise. I’ve tried hard to develop a bias to “yes” and to train my first instinct to be to follow my intuition until proven wrong. (Thus far, I’ve not been offered a poisoned peppermint by a stranger.)

Where are you biased to “no”, and how can you change it?

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.  - Leo Burnett

3. Ask dumb questions. Did you ever have a teacher say, “there are no dumb questions?” Me too, and it’s not true. There are dumb questions, but that’s OK. Sometimes we need to ask these questions to get them out of the way in order to progress to better and better questions. When we leave these “dumb” questions unasked out of fear, self-protection or laziness it clogs up our process and renders us unable to pursue our curiosities. Getting straight answers to some of these baseline questions can free you up to make progress on your creative goals.

Are there “dumb questions” that you need to ask in order to free you up?

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. Play. I have three children under the age of nine. When they begin a game, they rarely sit down and develop a strategy document containing the rules and objectives. When they build with LEGOs, they don’t do Gantt charts. They take the work as it comes, and throw themselves into it with all they have. They fearlessly make it up as they go. When we get caught up in the pragmatics of our situation, it hinders our ability to pursue possibility. Sometimes we simply need to allow ourselves the freedom to spend a half-hour playing with concepts, spinning thoughts in our head, and doing a dive into something that sparks our thoughts.

How can you “play” today? Is there a way to play within your current work?

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.  - Samuel Johnson

Curiosity is critical to the creative process, because it’s the fuel that drives our intuitive leaps. Taking time to do a pulse check on your curiosity will pay huge dividends over time.

So…add to this list. How do you stoke your curiosity?

I used to have at least a few hours in my office in the morning before I needed to get moving on the day. Now that we have three children, my morning time has diminished significantly. Our youngest, Ava, bounds out of bed at the first sound of activity so I try to sneak past her and usually manage to steal at least a half hour or so of quiet time before she peaks her head through my office door looking for a morning hug.

This morning Ava snuck into my office with an announcement: “I only have a few minutes here, because I have to go to work.”

Ava’s “office” is the closet of our refinished basement. I often see her tucked away in there with her Barbie activity laptop typing away for several minutes at a time. Curious, I thought I’d probe a bit. “Ava, what do you do when you work?”

She thought about it for a few seconds, eyes turned upward. “Well, I… I do things, and…” She paused again. “Well…I don’t know. They haven’t told me yet.”

So Ava, who spends perhaps hours a week nestled in a basement closet typing away on a non-responsive computer, is waiting for a non-existent manager to give her instructions about what to do in her fictional job.

This thing runs deep, people.

We all do lots of things as a function of our job. We have roles and responsibilities, tasks to check off, etc. But what do you do when you work? What are the things that you can uniquely do, that you shouldn’t have to wait for permission from anyone to knock out of the park? Are you doing those things, or are you waiting for someone to invite you to do them?

Seth Godin has written about not waiting for permission, and Steve Pressfield tells us to “do the work“, and we hear these things over and over again in the echo chambers of the web, but in the end it’s not what we know it’s what we do that matters. We can do a lot of work without ever really working. Call it avoidance. Call it fear. I call it abdicating your contribution. Robbing yourself, your co-workers, and (while we’re at it) all of the rest of us of the value you are uniquely wired to bring to the world.

So what do you do when you’re working? I mean flat-out, full-tilt, walking-on-the-edge-of-the-abyss working? We/I/they need you to do more of that. Get to it, please.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Why do creative teams “settle in” and stay “in the grooves” rather than continuing to develop and grow?

One answer is that we’re afraid of the “growth gap”. Watch the video, then let us know is you’ve seen this dynamic at work in your own creating or on your team. Share your thoughts below.

Julien is the author of the new book The Flinch, writes regularly at JulienSmith.com, and in this interview he shares some thoughts about how we can get over ourselves and do our work.

[Get AC podcasts delivered automatically in iTunes or by RSS.]

I was fascinated by this article describing an installation at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art called The Obliteration Room. In the experiment a room and its furniture were painted white, and over the course of a few weeks children were given multi-colored stickers to place anywhere in the room. The article describes what happens next:

Over the course of two weeks, the museum’s smallest visitors were given thousands upon thousands of colored dot stickers and were invited to collaborate in the transformation of the space, turning the house into a vibrantly mottled explosion of color.

In fact, the phrase that popped to mind is that it is was beautiful mess. This made me wonder whether our obsession with getting organized is actually, in some cases, interfering with our ability to seek serendipity in our creative process.

The creative process is often fueled by, as Steven Johnson calls it, “getting more parts on the table”. When we have a space in which we can be messy, get more parts on the table, and explore novel combinations, we often find serendipity striking us at the least expected moment.

So where is your obliteration room? Where is your space in which you have permission to get messy? Could you set aside a space for your team? Do you have one for yourself; a corner of your room, perhaps? Or maybe just a time at some point during your week in which you let yourself make a mess? After all, birth is messy.

via This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids | Colossal.

In recent years there has been an explosion of websites dedicated to tips, tricks and methods for being more productive. Every day my Twitter stream fills up with articles titled “5 Ways To…” and “7 Simple Steps For…” and “The [Insert Famous Person] Guide To…” [I resisted the urge to title this post "The 1 Easy Way To Be More Productive".]

The problem is that, while many of these articles contain elements of solid advice, they all feed the insatiable hunger we have for the killer app. The golden key. The one-size-fits-all system that will forever change how we do our work and enable us to unleash hell on our next project. We simply need to know the five steps and then the world will be ours. (By the way, I’m writing this with one finger pointed squarely in my own chest.)

The problem is that many of us are in love with the idea of being productive more than we really want to produce.

The real killer app? It’s understanding that the root word of the adjective productive is a verb: produce. What we’re really after is to produce something, not to feel productive. The something we produce might be bad. Really bad, actually. Or it might be great. But at the end of the day no one really cares how you produced it, they only care that there is something there to see, hear or poke.

A carpenter can know all of the best practices and tips and tricks for making things out of wood, but real learning only comes through splinters and mistakes. Knowledge means nothing without practice of craft. A manager can read every best-selling book about how to lead people, but that’s useless until there are emotions and real risk involved. It’s clinical. Sterile, even. (And yes, I’d rather you make something valuable today than read a single word of my book. I wrote it to inspire action.)

The problem is that many of us are in love with the idea of being productive more than we really want to produce.

The only job of the artist is to produce something. To make the ineffable tangible. How the artist does this is between the artist and the wind. No one needs to know.

So if you (me, or anyone) want to be more productive today, the best way to do so is to begin each day with a single question:

What will I produce today?

At the end of the day, what will exist that didn’t before? What will I bring into the world? What questions will I answer, problems will I solve, rock will I move? The delta is what matters. What changed about the world today because I existed?

Yes, read tips and advice articles and take value from them. That’s fine. (I do too.) But remember that at the end of your life, no one will care how many productivity hacks and tips you know. All that will stand – as a monument to your life’s work – is what you actually produce.

But we too easily confuse value with complexity. These are two exclusive concepts that are not necessarily related. The result is that we waste time and valuable creative energy spinning round and round over-complicating what should be very simple.

Why do we do this? Why do we over-complicate our work and its deliverables?

I recently had the privilege of connecting with Sean Platt to discuss the mashup between creativity and entrepreneurship (full audio of interview below). Sean is pioneering the genre of serialized fiction for the digital age, and has a lot to say about how to balance the need to create out of a love for the work with the need to create something that your market will find valuable. Here are a few of my key insights from our conversation.

Your best work will likely come from tapping into a deeper passion for your current work rather than seeking the buzz of new work. It’s critical that we are able to to drill deep into the themes that fuel us and apply them to our work. This will tend to lead to doing our best work, right where we are. Sometimes working for others provides you with rails that allow you to do better work.

We cannot treat our work as too precious. A healthy creative process must involve a certain amount of distance from the work. We can’t hold it as precious to the point that it limits our willingness to take creative risks.

At the same time, we must not undervalue our work. In the “race to the bottom” that results from the rise of digital media, artists of all stripes must be careful not to fall prey to the temptation to give away work out of a fear of going unnoticed. There is a balance between generosity and neediness.

There are still gatekeepers, they’re just more distributed. With the death of mass (as Seth Godin recently called it) we are now faced with the need to attract and grow communities to help us gain larger audiences for our work. The challenge is that there are now more voices in the mix competing for a limited bandwidth of attention. The artist must now be experienced at creating, packaging and selling and can no longer simply engage in their art. This also raises questions about what this will do to the value of art minus marketing. (Would we have had The Beatles if they’d been required to make their living performing concerts instead of in the studio recording amazing music?)

These are a few learnings and thoughts from our extended, multi-topic chat. Your thoughts about what’s above or anything else from our conversation?

Listen: 

What fuels you? What really fires you up? And more importantly, are you utilizing this in your daily work? If you’re not, you’re closing the door on a potential source of ideas and inspiration.

It’s easy to become dispassionate about your work when you lose sight of the “fire in your gut.” When you fail to see yourself as on mission. When you lose touch with your capacity to influence the world for the better.

I spent the better part of the past few weeks in South Africa, mostly in and around the township of Soweto. It was soul-gratifying to visit some of the significant historical sites in the struggle for freedom for black South Africans, and to have dinner on the only street in the world that claims the former homes of two Nobel Peace Prize winners. I was enthralled by the stories of focused, persistent, patient effort over the course of decades that led to the eventual transformation of South Africa.

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela

As I reflected on my time and experiences in South Africa, I had the insight that the times when I’ve been most effective were also the times when I was most obsessed with a cause. The process of finding your voice begins with identifying the thing that fuels your fire. Have you thought about what that might be? Not what others think it should be, or what others in your kind of job say it should be, or what it used to be, but what it is?

There are three elements that I believe fuel us to varying degrees: pay, prestige and process. Pay includes all of the physical benefits of our work, such as compensation. Prestige includes the accolades and recognition we receive for our work, including titles, promotions and awards. Process is about the work itself and being motivated by the continual discovery and challenge of solving problems and making progress.

And that’s the thing. If you can’t define what meaningful progress is to you, it will be difficult to identify the fire in your gut.

Few of us will have the chance to engage in a decades-long struggle for justice, but we all can identify something that fuels our process. What is that for you? What are you fighting for and against? How do you define greatness? 

We live with the stubborn illusion that we will always have tomorrow to do today’s work. Just a thought: I believe that the most important work we can all do today is to define what our work will be about.

If you’re like most creative people, you probably have a number of projects on your plate right now. You probably also have a number of projects twirling around in your head that you’d like to get around to – someday. The weight of all that’s undone can feel oppressive and make you feel like you’re under-performing.

But doing everything at once obviously isn’t the answer either. If you try to tackle too much at any given time, you’re likely to wind up in burnout mode, and you certainly won’t be equipped to bring your best to whatever other important work you’re doing.

When was the last time you purposefully pruned your life (and project list) so that you had the time, focus and energy you needed for your most important work? Doing this on a regular basis is difficult, because each pruned idea and project feels like you’re abandoning a child, but this kind of ruthless dedication to energy management is what’s required in order to sustain over the long-term.

Here are four quick questions to help evaluate a project for potential prune-ability:

Is this something I could do better later? Excitement about a project does not equate to present viability. Scott Belsky talks about the project plateau, which is what happens when a project is abandoned once a new and exciting comes along. We need to develop a filter for the timeliness of our ideas so that we’re not bouncing from project to project and abusing our energy.

Is this something that could be folded into another project? With a little effort, we can often fold our new ideas into existing projects. Not everything belongs on your project list under a separate heading. Ask yourself how this idea applies to other efforts already under way.

Is this an idea for someone else? Sometimes others are far better equipped to execute your idea than you are. Don’t be stingy. Share generously and don’t be afraid to offer up ideas to others if they’re in a better position to see them through. The world needs ideas that are well executed, not ideas parked in notebooks.

What’s my true motive for wanting to do this project? We can be compelled to do things for many reasons, some of which may not be the best or most healthy. Are you striving to make something great, or for the recognition that will come from your work? Are you genuinely curious, or do you just want to appear so? Identifying the projects on your list that truly resonate with your deeper motivation can help you determine which should find a place on your task list.

Take a few moments to peruse your project list and filter it through the questions above. See if you can’t find some room to maneuver good, but not timely projects onto a someday maybe list or shuffle them off to other more capable hands.

Being intentional about managing energy is one of the most important practices that creative pros can implement. Prune relentless, execute flawlessly.

How about you? Do you have any methods for managing your creative energy?

Have you ever played a competitive game against someone? A sport or a board game? It brings out your best effort. In a similar way, you can leverage the power of competition to help you gain new insights, develop new skills, and grow as a creative.

In chapter five of The Accidental Creative, I described a practice I’ve used for years called head-to-heads. It’s a meet-up between two people that’s designed to share insights, stimulate new thoughts and provoke good conversation. The discussion can be on any topic – such as books you’re reading, a conference or seminar you attended, or something you’ve been working on that you’d like to share – but the main goal is to “out share” the other person and provide the most value to the conversation. (Think of it as a two person Ignite event.) Head-to-heads are an invaluable tool for personal growth.

Here are a few principles for making your head-to-heads successful:

Set a time and be consistent. Make this a priority on your calendar and don’t violate it. If you’ve set a time and made a commitment, it will cause you to have to prepare. Once per month is the perfect frequency because it allows enough time between for each of you to have experienced something new to share with the other person.

Vary your subject matter. Remember that the goal is to bring something new – an insight, new resource or piece of work – to the table each time to spark conversation. With this in mind, think strategically about the kinds of topics you introduce so that you’re diversifying and challenging one another to think in new ways. A few prompts to help think of topics are: what are you currently interested in or curious about? What have you read recently that would be of interest to the other person? What’s a dangerous new thought you’ve had recently that you’d like to share and defend?

Choose your partner wisely. You want to choose someone who will challenge and stretch you. A good method for choosing your head-to-head partners is to ask, “if I could see inside anyone’s notebook right now, just to see what they’re currently thinking, who would it be?” There needs to be a mutual respect between participants.

Come prepared. Bring about fifteen minutes worth of content to discuss. It can be the main points of a book you’re reading or a lecture you heard, your thoughts about an industry trend, or a discussion about the process you utilized on the work you’re sharing. Whatever your choice, remember that the goal is to spark discussion and enlighten the other person, as they will be doing the same for you.

Will the sparks fly every single time you do one of these? Absolutely not. Just like anything, you’ll experience ups and downs. But I have rarely had a head-to-head in which I didn’t walk away feeling more energized and with some new insight at-the-ready to apply to my work. If you bring your best effort to them, you’ll get the best out.

==

So here’s the question: what do you think about this idea (head-to-heads), and if you were having one today, what would you share?

Have you ever reached the end of your day and found that your biggest priorities were largely untouched? How can it be that no matter how many lists we make and how many times we review our priorities, time continues to slip through our hands? Often the source of these time sinks is a lack of diligence at a few critical moments throughout the day. These “Time Sinks” can cause us to lose heart, feel lazy and generally lose our productive momentum.

Contrary to popular belief, all time is not created equal. A moment can seem like an hour, and an hour can be fleeting. By turning these Time Sinks into Time Warp moments, we can set ourselves up for greater daily productivity.

The First Fifteen Minutes Of Your Day

What do you do when you get out of bed? Many people jump into their day in a scattered manner. They jump out of bed, turn on the TV, grab some coffee, check e-mail and – for some – spend time getting the family ready for the day.

What if you were to take a bit of time at the beginning of the day to clarify your objectives and set priorities for the day? What if you were to do a last minute assessment of your upcoming day and choose when you were going to do your most important work?

Airplane pilots understand how familiarity can dull the senses. Accordingly, no matter how many times they’ve flown a plane, all pilots go through a final pre-flight checklist to make sure that they’re ready to fly and haven’t missed any crucial steps. In a similar way, taking fifteen quiet minutes at the very beginning of your day to review your schedule and priorities and decide where your focused pockets of productive work are going to happen can make a huge difference in your productive output.

Contrary to popular belief, all time is not created equal. A moment can seem like an hour, and an hour can be fleeting.

The Ten Minutes Before A Meeting

Tell me if this sounds familiar: it’s meeting time and everyone comes rushing in from their previous commitment. A few people are late. The conversation at the beginning feels like a long train struggling to gain forward momentum. Finally, ten minutes in, the real meeting kicks off.

Now, imagine that everyone on your team took ten minutes before the meeting to think through (1) what are we really trying to do in this meeting?, (2) what is my unique contribution to the conversation?, and (3) how will we know the meeting is finished? Not only would everyone arrive at the meeting on time, they would also come ready to contribute to a productive conversation.

Even if you can’t change your team culture, what if you implemented a practice of taking ten minutes before each meeting to answer these questions? It would make you more focused, a better contributor and more aligned throughout your day with what’s expected of you.

The “Space Between”

The most challenging time sinks are when we have ten to fifteen minutes between our major commitments. It’s tempting to cruise through this time in “maintenance mode”, meaning that we respond to e-mail, have spontaneous conversations or generally bounce from urgent task to urgent task, often rushing into our next commitment stressed and unready to engage.

Instead, it can be helpful to take five minutes several times throughout your day to get away, glance again at your priorities, your upcoming commitments, and to ask if anything has changed that causes a need to re-direct or re-prioritize your day. No matter how good our plan for the day, there are always things that come up that cause a need for re-direction. Give yourself permission to change your commitments as needed and to re-negotiate your priorities. Additionally, you may want to build buffers into your day between stressful events to make sure that you’re being mindful of energy.

The Last Fifteen Minutes Of Your Day

It’s the end of the day and you’re exhausted. You have a lot coming up tomorrow, so you want to get a good night’s sleep. But before you fall comatose into your bed, you may want to take advantage of the opportunity to spend some time reflecting on your day and preparing for tomorrow.

It’s said that Ben Franklin began each day by asking “What good will I do today”, and ended each day by asking “What good did I do today?” In a similar way, taking a few minutes at the end of your day to review your accomplishments and how they line up with your overall priorities, values and objectives can help you stay on track throughout the week. Additionally, taking just a few minutes to bring to mind one creative problem or objective that you plan to attack the following day can set you up to hit the ground running the following morning. (It’s also been reported by many creatives that they find ideas coalescing overnight because of this kind of pre-sleep prompting.)

Use the last few minutes before sleep to re-claim your focus and ease your mind for a good night’s sleep.

Do The Time Warp

These are just a few methods that I’ve found very effective for leveraging small pockets of time for maximum effect. Remember that time is the currency of productivity, and make sure that you’re not devaluing it.

Are there methods or practices that you’ve found effective for re-claiming your time? Please share them with the rest of us!

But how do you know when it’s time to start something new? That was the topic of conversation when I recently caught up with Bryn Mooth, freelance writer and founder of Writes4Food. For those who don’t know her, Bryn is the former Editor of HOW magazine, and recently reached a crossroads in life and career that suggested that it was time to make a break from her well-established, 20 year career path and begin life anew as a freelance writer. (Bryn also shared some of her thoughts about this a few months ago in a guest article.)

A few highlights/learnings I took away from the interview:

1.  It’s rare that there is a “beacon of clarity” around when to make a move. It’s more like a series of subtle prompts that are easily overlooked if you’re not paying attention.
2. Courage is always necessary. If you wait until things are perfectly safe, you may miss your opportunity. But…
3. There’s a difference between a risk and a gamble. There needs to be a clear path forward before proceeding with your plan to launch something new. And…
4. It’s always important to make sure you’re running toward something, not running away from something. Otherwise you’re likely to find yourself in a desert space between desire and ability.

I’m thankful to Bryn for taking the time to share her insights about starting something new. Enjoy!

I spent the past several days (and a few snowstorm-induced extra ones!) leading a training on Accidental Creative methods in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia. I had a bit of time in the evenings to explore the city, and while on one of my strolls I snapped a photo of a curious sign (above).

Though it was really just pointing to an info station, I was immediately struck – in mid-stride – by the unintended profundity of the sign. We spend so much of our day desperately seeking the best answers to problems we’re facing. We toil, tweak and iterate until our iterator is worn. We refine and crank. Because we’re pros, we’re great at all of these things.

But how much time do we spend getting the question right? Making sure that we’ve defined the problem effectively? Chasing our curiosity?

The more I live and the more work I do, the more convinced I’ve become that the biggest battle we face as creatives isn’t getting the right answers, it’s arriving at the right questions. If we can effectively define the true essence of the problem we’re trying to solve, we will gain traction much more quickly on our work.

Instead, we sometimes find that we’re spinning out like bald tires on an ice slick. No friction, no traction. Where there is no definition of the problem, there is no focus. Welcome to creative purgatory.

Have you effectively defined your work? More importantly, have you identified the questions that must be answered in order to accomplish your objectives? It’s best not to rely on the organization to do this for you. As a creative you must own this part of it. In the words of a wise (fictional) man, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Also, are you paying attention to your curiosity? Many of us shut down our hunches because we’re afraid of where they might lead. They often don’t seem practical or immediately applicable to the problem at hand. We treat our curiosity like our slacker college friend who offers to take us on a road trip through upstate New York the weekend before finals. “No thanks,” we say. “I can’t make a trip to see the leaves. I have to study them in my textbook.” Don’t ignore your hunches. Your mind is brilliant at making connections, but if it’s shut down enough times it seems to stop trying. Your loss.

Define. Refine. Follow your hunches. Pursue your deeper curiosity. Don’t get so lost doing the work that you’re not really doing the work. Execution is only valuable if you’re really creating something of value.

I recently began a new workout routine. I was looking for something that I could do daily, and that I could take with me on the road and do in my hotel room. I’m learning (quickly) how much I’ve allowed my physical intelligence to wane due to the frantic, intense demands of life over the past several years. I’ve spent time on the treadmill, in the weight room, playing basketball, etc., but as this new workout has forced me to use every muscle in my body, I’ve learned (via the aches and pains) how many of them I’ve thoroughly neglected.

The most challenging exercises for me are not the “just push yourself and grunt through it” kind, it’s the “stand there and hold a pose as your muscles scream for relief” kind. Many of these require good posture and balance, neither of which are in my wheelhouse.

Finding Balance…

As I stood struggling to gain my sense of balance for a stretching exercise, the instructor on the DVD suddenly shouted “FOCUS! FIND YOUR CENTER!” I quickly realized that my mind had been racing in ten different directions as I was struggling to stay on my feet.

“Did I reply to that e-mail?”
“Do we have a post queued up for later today?”
“Why do my legs hurt so much?”
… 

All of these side thoughts were silenced by the instructor’s command to focus. I snapped back to where I was, felt my body struggling, re-affirmed what I was trying to do (stay centered and balanced), and something amazing happened. I stabilized. I was balanced. Nothing had changed physically. I was still standing on one foot, arm outstretched, feeling the burn. But I was suddenly – because of a simple change of focus – perfectly poised and balanced.

It’s amazing – truly – that a simple change in focus could have that much power over my entire body’s ability to stay balanced. By clarifying my thoughts and eliminating distractions I changed my entire ability to engage in the exercise. (It still hurt, by the way.)

And Finding Balance…

I hear many creatives lamenting their inability to find a sense of balance in their life. This usually means that they feel overwhelmed by the volume of expectations in their work, and the pressure to produce is a specter that haunts them even when technically “off the clock”. (This is the value-versus-time tension described in chapter two of The Accidental Creative.) The weight of all that’s still undone feels oppressive and clouds everything else in their life.

But what if a shift in focus could change all of that? I’ve experienced frequently that defining the work to be done, truly clarifying objectives, and gaining a better sense of focus around ongoing expectations brings an immediate sense of balance to people and teams. The simple (but difficult) choice to truly focus on what’s in front of you rather than allowing everything “out there” to weigh you down brings an immediate sense of clarity of priorities.

Here are a few ways to apply this focus-shift:

Define your work. Do each of your projects have associated challenges? A challenge is a simple, non-complex question that defines what you’re really trying to do. I frequently find that a frantic sense of imbalance often stems from a lack of definition of objectives.

Commit to being single-minded. When you’re working on something, commit to that thing. Don’t bounce back and forth from task to task, priority to priority. Stay in the moment until it’s time to break and do something else. There is no such thing as true multi-tasking. You will probably end up doing both tasks less effectively.

Have dedicated time for centering. Block off several minutes a few times during your day to remind yourself of what you’re really trying to accomplish, and to re-define your work and expectations as needed. Don’t simply drift through your day following the plans you made yesterday or last week. Re-direct and re-define as needed, and find your center.

If you want to find a sense of balance, it begins with a commitment to the proper mindset. Take some time to center, simplify and define and you may find the stress dissolving and a sense of focused intensity in its place.

How about you? Do you have techniques for finding a sense of balance in your life and work?

Jonathan Fields is a force of clarity for creatives. He regularly posts brilliant insights and reflections on his own site, and tomorrow his wonderful new book Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel For Brilliance catapults into bookstores everywhere.

I had the chance to connect with Jonathan to hear more about  the book and to learn a little more about the role of uncertainty, doubt and fear in the creative process. (For more, you can also listen to our recent interview with Jonathan on the AC podcast.)

==

How does uncertainty affect our creative process?

Being in a state of uncertainty is critical to the creative process. It opens you to the possibility that you don’t know everything. That there might be better ideas out there to find or create. Being certain, by contrast, is a quest-killer for creatives. Why bother pushing further when you already have the answer?

Problem is, being in a state of uncertainty and having to act in that place is also very uncomfortable for most people. It causes unease, anxiety and fear. That leads us to either shut down or race through it in the name of not having to feel the discomfort any more. Problem is, at the same time, we end up killing or stunting the very thing we hoped to bring to life.

You introduce us in the book to something called the “creative crux”. Can you explain what that is?

Creatives always work with some level of uncertainty. But, without fail, there will be critical moments where everything comes to a head, where you’ve got to make a major call and take substantial action, even though you don’t know how it’s going to end and don’t have all the information you think you need.

What you do in the those pivotal moments often defines the success or failure of the entire endeavor, even if they make up a small amount of the total time and decisions involved in the fuller quest. These moments are your creative crux moves.

The name, by the way, comes from the most challenging move or series of moves when you’re rock-climbing. And, similarly, the difficulty of a climb is not rated so much by the overall route, but rather by the difficulty of the crux moves.

Being in a state of uncertainty is critical to the creative process. It opens you to the possibility that you don’t know everything.

What are some ways you’ve found for creatives to deal with the fear of judgment and “getting it wrong”?

Fear of judgment is one of the biggest things that shuts creatives down. It stops forward movement, but also, because of it’s indirect effect on your ability to handle uncertainty, it also stunts creativity.

Step one is to realize we actually do not want to eliminate judgment. Judgment is just feedback…with a bit of emotional sludge attached. We may not want the sludge, but the feedback is critical.

Simply understanding that it’s a needed part of the process can help shift the way you feel about it. How you feel about judgment also flows from whether you’ve adopted what Professor Carol Dweck calls a growth or fixed mindset.

A growth mindset assumes progress comes from work, so mistakes and feedback are just parts of the process that bring you closer to success. A fixed mindset assumes success is based on genetics, so mistakes or failures are signs that you’ve hit your potential and judgment is viewed more as futility because there’s nothing you can do about.

Also, creating a small, selective creation hive type of environment with the right people, ethic and all-ships-rising culture can be immensely helpful in disempowering the fear side of judgment, while keeping the data side needed to go deeper into the creative journey.

What was your favorite thing you uncovered during researching and writing this book?

Probably the coolest thing about the research was how it profoundly changed not only my own creative process, but the way I live in the world. For example, it’s hard to sit there and have a parade of world-class creators tell you that truly great work comes when you surrender the process to where it needs to go, and then realize that you’re not following their advice as you write your highly-planned, linear work.

So, at a certain point I had to leave the plan behind, apply many of the ideas and practices that unfold in the book and let the book go where it needed to go.

If creatives could walk away with one main lesson from Uncertainty, what would you want that to be?

The butterflies are there for a reason. They are signposts that what you’re seeking to create matters. Rather than hunt and kill them by default, spend some time learning how to listen to them, then if it makes sense, train in the skills and processes that’ll allow you to harness and ride them to greatness.

As a general rule, when yo kill the butterflies, you also kill the dream.

==

Thanks, Jonathan! Learn more about Uncertainty, or connect with Jonathan here.

Anyone can create when they experience a rapturous, intoxicating influx of inspiration. But for creative pros, (emphasis on the pro part), inspiration is often a luxury. We go to work everyday and have to make meaning out of seemingly unrelated bits of data and extract form from the formless. We forge systems where there was once frustration and chaos. We use words to evoke memories. We design visuals that reveal form, meaning, beauty. But there is a difference between doing the work and loving the work. Because we can’t afford to treat our work as too precious, we’re often in the place where we encounter barriers to full engagement. We hit walls that keep us from doing our best work.

There are two walls that creatives hit when engaged in making something meaningful. The first wall, and the most obvious one, occurs before or very early in the process. It’s what causes us to shrink back from engagement and to instead seek something – ANYTHING – that will immediately relieve our need to feel productive. It’s much easier to check e-mail, make a call or re-shuffle the papers on our desk than it is to bare our soul to the blank page, the blinking cursor, or the empty art board. This first wall is what Steve Pressfield famously calls “Resistance” and it’s become a topic of much discussion in the creative community. Rightly so. Starting is the hardest part of any creative effort. It’s the point at which we decide that apathy is a worse fate than failure. When we defy Resistance we discover ourselves – our true selves.

Because we can’t afford to treat our work as too precious, we’re often in the place where we encounter barriers to full engagement. We hit walls that keep us from doing our best work.

But that’s only the first part of the struggle. As we go about our work we inevitably hit a second hurdle: the dreaded “second wall”. This is the point at which we face a problem that seems immediately unresolvable. We can’t decipher the right course of action, and we panic slightly. Our mind starts to flutter again with thoughts of distractions to fill our need for a quick productivity ping. We start to lose our edge, and we rationalize that this might be a good time to take a break. (This is some of what was addressed in chapter four of The Accidental Creative.)

But breaking at this critical phase of the creative process can be harmful in more ways than one. First, it causes us to lose critical focus at a time when our mind is revved and ready to go. This means that the next time we sit down to do our work, maybe even in ten minutes, we will have to regain our posture and recollect our thoughts. This can be quite detrimental to real progress.

Second, giving way to the second wall means that we’ll be beginning our work with a previously unsolvable challenge, which will contribute all the more to our difficulty engaging again. (How motivated are you to roll out of bed and immediately tackle cold your most challenging work for the day? Probably not so motivated.)

The solution? We need to learn to push through the second wall. When the first seemingly insolvable challenge presents itself, we need to stay with it until we have a reasonable solution. We should always end our work sessions on the upswing, not at an impasse. This will do a few things for us:

- It gives us a working solution. Even if the solution we come to is not the best solution, our minds can more easily refine a sub-par solution than generate a new one from scratch. In between work sessions we can continue to refine and tweak our solution until it’s the best it can be.

- It subtly reinforces our capacity to solve problems. If we quit every time we face a difficult challenge, we’re training our brain to fold at the first sign of conflict. However, like any kind of physical training, pushing ourselves through the burn increases our future capacity to do great work.

- It provides us with a starting point. If you struggle with the first wall – getting started – then one effective way of combating this struggle is by always providing yourself with a good starting point. Make sure that you end each previous session with a solid way to begin your work next time. If you’re excited about your next action, then you’re less likely to procrastinate and look for alternative forms of engagement.

Like any kind of training that challenges us physically or mentally, we need to learn the value of persistence and commitment to our creative work. Stagnancy leads to apathy, which leads to death. To continue growing, we must commit to busting through the second wall. On the other side of it we will find our best work.