Creativity Under Pressure: TEDx XavierU

By Todd Henry

I recently gave a talk at TEDx Xavier University on the dynamics of creating on-demand. (Watch above or click here to view.) It was fun to see a TEDx event organized entirely by a (fantastic) group of university students!

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to trim work you love and are passionate about down until it hurts, but I have to say that it was remarkably difficult to condense what is normally a 60 minute talk into just 18. Considering that I give this talk several times per month at conferences and companies – in much longer format – I found it really difficult to stay on the rails and not venture off into the wilderness. If you watch closely, you may even see me bite my lip a few times to keep from saying more. It was a very useful exercise in creative constraint. (I’d recommend trying this exercise with your art. Choose a project. Take away everything you think you can, then take away some more. Then add a few things back as needed. Funny how things we think are necessary to our art are sometimes luxuries sourced in laziness.)

The gist of the talk is about the importance of building structure into your life in order to create room for your creative process to flourish, specifically in the five areas outlined in the book (Focus, Relationships, Energy, Stimuli, Hours).

So, I’d love it if you’d watch the talk, then let me know in the comments:

1. Which area of Rhythm (Focus, Relationships, Energy, Stimuli, Hours) are you currently doing best at? And/or…
2. Which area of Rhythm are you struggling with the most, or maybe have questions about?

Also, if you find it useful, please help spread the word about the talk. (Thanks!)

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Todd Henry

Todd is the founder of Accidental Creative, the author of The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice, and an in-demand speaker and consultant .

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http://tdhurst.com/ tdhurst

For a second there I thought you were wearing leather pants.

Which would have been awesome.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  I was so…very…tempted to, Tyler. (Except I’ve never owned leather pants. Other than that, I was close.)
http://joeltimothy.com/ Joel Wilson

Thanks for the talk. I did the Everyday Brilliance course about a year and a half ago.

The hardest part for me is simply finding (and sticking to) my own patterns to implement healthy rhythms.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  That’s the hardest part for nearly all of us. It takes persistence, and a daily commitment to stay engaged in practices that make us effective, even when they don’t feel efficient. (We’re about to launch something to help with that…)
  - soft celluloid
    
    go on…. please give us a hint?
    some kind of task or action app? ( i hope?)
    - http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
      
      We are going to launch a few apps very soon, but that’s not what I was referring to. (Though announcements forthcoming this summer.) What I was referring to is that we are about to add to AC Engage a daily podcast with specific, practical tips for staying engaged with practices. More soon.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=652025743 Norma Jeane Safford Vela

Great talk. I’m not sure if “Die empty” would inspire me as much as some other things you said, but the idea of being Brilliant, Prolific AND Healthy certainly would.

Agree with Joel – having a pattern is rough. But I think my bigger challenge is the Ping. Must. Learn. Focus.

Love your book as well, BTW.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  Thank you, Norma Jeane!
Grace Kaufman

Excellent video and article, Todd! I am an Ideas and Improvement Manager for an international company; I handle one of the companies in the U.S. Your expertise is invaluable, and I continue to share with our management in Europe. As the Ideas Manager in our company, I am having the most difficulty getting our employees to find “stimuli” to inspire them to consistently look for innovation in the workplace. This combined with “hours” to get the effectiveness vs. efficiency – especially when we’re trying to get our numbers up in the ideas program. (We compete with our other companies around the world by finding ideas that improve a process, which hopefully, translates to cost savings at year-end. Again – excellent stuff. Keep ‘em coming!
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  I’m hearing from quite a few others who are expressing that stimuli and hours are their Achilles’ heel as well. It’s the never ending organizational pull toward efficiency over effectiveness that squashes many efforts to create space for thought. Thanks for sharing your story!
dmanch

Maintaining a diet of provocative stimuli is easy to a fault. I’m slave to my curiosity. Conversely, focus is a perpetual challenge–more like synthetic ADD than continuous partial awareness.
The focus problem is, of course, due to the usual suspects: high cognitive-noise environment, low information content, poor energy management.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  There are a few polarities here that I didn’t mention. FOCUS and STIMULI seem to be connected, and HOURS and ENERGY seem to be connected. (Relationships kind of folds under stimuli, though it was such an integral part of practices of effective people I singled it out.) It seems like, though I have no data to back this up (!!) excessive emphasis on one affects the other. I plan to explore this more at some point.
http://www.davidpmariano.com/ Dave Mariano

Allocating hours is probably toughest for me. I love to learn so it’s easy to get deep down a rabbit hole of reading and absorbing information. Before I know it hours have passed and I’m drained. I’m getting better lately with the help of a timer and aides like Macfreedom. It gets easier as you go though, just like any habit. It reminds me when I first started working out again in 2008. Those first few days were brutal. I feel like I’m in the second month of working out; still not where I need to be, but I can see the light and a habit is forming.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique in writing my new book. Lots of 20 minute bursts of writing, punctuated by short breaks. I can do anything for 20 minutes at a time… :)
  - http://www.davidpmariano.com/ Dave Mariano
    
    Great suggestion. I’m using a timer for that sort of thing, but my bursts are probably still a little long. I might have to shorten them and see what happens. Thanks, Todd.
  - Lyden Foust
    
    Pomodoro technique is my bread and butter during finals week. You can go marathon pace with it.
http://iconart.us/ Matthew

Great presentation! Creatively empowering for sure. It is wonderful to hear you support the structure for the daily practices that most energize me.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  Thanks, Matthew!
http://www.modred.co.uk/ Scott

Great talk! I like to think I work better under pressure, but everyone hits a wall sometimes. I just try to completely forget about the task in hand, then come back to it & different ideas usually emerge.
http://twitter.com/LizFrencham liz frencham

Have been listening to your podcasts and have found it all so inspiring- thank you. From a stuck artist who has finally begun creating again.

I have trouble with both the health part and the prolific part, and sometimes the quality too….

Funny, I have played my own music as well as playing in a cover band. One pays pretty well, the other wakes me up and I feel alive.
- http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry
  
  Yes!!! Thanks so much for sharing, Liz.