Posts Tagged ‘Creativity’
In an early episode of the excellent TV series Mad Men, agency partner Roger Sterling walks into creative director Don Draper's office to find Don gazing off into space.
"I'll never get used to the fact that most of the time it looks like you're doing nothing," Sterling quips.
Sterling should take comfort in the fact that our best creative work is done in times of reflection and idleness. Studies have shown that the wandering mind is more likely to have a "Eureka!" moment of clarity and creativity. Taking breaks and zoning out from everyday tasks gives our brains time to do a kind of long-term, big-picture thinking that immediate engagement with bosses and clients and email and meetings does not.
Designer Stefan Sagmeister takes these findings seriously. He works time off into his schedule in a way that will make you green with envy. Every seven years, Sagmeister closes his New York City–based design studio for an entire year of creative rejuvenation. During his sabbatical, Sagmeister "works," but not for clients. (He's serious about that, too. Last year, he turned down an opportunity to design a poster for the Obama campaign while he was on sabbatical.)
Read the rest at HarvardBusiness.org »
Psychological Distance Increases Creativity · A new study indicates that imagining something is farther away than it is--either geographically or in time--changes the way your brain perceives it and actually increases creativity. [via kottke.org] · July 28th, 2009
In his latest essay, Paul Graham describes the difference between what he calls the maker's schedule and the manager's schedule. Makers--the writers, coders, designers, editors, creative types--need half or whole days to produce anything that solves complicated problems. Managers schedule out their workdays in hour-long blocks. When managers schedule makers into midday meetings, they kill creative productivity in real but not-obvious ways. Graham considers himself a maker, and describes why meetings are the enemy of creativity:
I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there's sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I'm slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you're a maker, think of your own case. Don't your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don't. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.
This resonates with me deeply.
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Anyone who makes things for a living should watch author Elizabeth Gilbert's 20 minute talk at the TED conference this month (full video below). Gilbert published the mega-Oprah-bestseller Eat, Pray, Love which is soon to be a movie starring Julia Roberts. In this talk she explains one way she's found to quell the anxiety that comes with following up after a big commercial success. Namely, she's gone back to the ancient idea that creative inspiration is an entity separate from us, which speaks through us: the muse, as it were.
It's not a popular idea these days.
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60 Minutes interviews Coldplay's front man Chris Martin about how he writes hit songs. Being "openly neurotic," Martin makes sure he captures song ideas the moment they strike him--even if it means scribbling them onto his piano with a Sharpie. He's got a marker holder mounted to his whitewashed piano for just that purpose, as shown. In the video below, reporter Steve Croft asks about it.
Croft: You have notes written on the piano?
Martin: Yeah, look, but this is just the beginning. In six months, this will all be covered.
Croft: And you have to repaint the piano?
Martin: Yeah. When we finish something, we repaint.
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Actress Felicia Day writes, stars in, and produces the hit web series The Guild, which is one of my favorite things happening online right now. In a recent blog entry, she describes what made her start writing the series:
I had a strange realization that time passes whether you’re doing something with it or not. It would be easy to let every day go by easily with no risk and then, at the end of the day (my life), I would look back and realize that fear ruled me: At that point there would be nothing I could do about it. So, I got off my butt! It wasn’t easy and I had a lot of lapses (I still do) but the experience of being ruthless with myself was an amazing lesson to learn.
The Guild is in season 2 right now, and a new episode comes out every Tuesday on Xbox Live, and then on MSN Video. Even though the webisodes are only around 10 minutes or less, I look forward to them as much as I look forward to a new episode of 30 Rock. See also my starstruck interview with Felicia over at Lifehacker published a few months back, or her full blog post: How I Started Writing.
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