Since creativity is not easy to measure, you can’t consistently quantify your daily creative effort beyond the simple question: Did I show up today? Showing up means arriving at the studio or desk or workspace ready and willing to do the work as required. Some days, what is required may be the joyful task of […]

Day 6 of the weeklong photography challenge and I am happy to report that I seem to have hit a groove this evening. This might have happened because today was in essence an all-day Artist Date. (An Artist Date, as discussed in  creativity expert Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way,  is a weekly date with yourself […]

  The more I read and experience and observe creative people, the more I notice how we get in our own way and limit our creativity by imposing rules about the conditions we require in order to create. We might be convinced we can only create using specific tools or in a certain setting or […]

If you haven’t read the old 80’s era creativity book, A Whack on the Side of the Head: How to Unlock your Mind For Innovation by Silicon Valley creativity guru Roger von Oech, you should. As von Oech describes it, the book explains how you can engage in mental sex – meaning “sex of our […]

A few weeks ago I suggested making small changes to your daily life to help your brain practice thinking in new ways. You can open your mind to new thought patterns by purposely setting yourself up to adapt to change. How did you do? (Here’s the list of suggested mind expanding changes.) Did it put […]

I sometimes write in a coffee shop. I might go there because the peeps at home are driving me nuts, sometimes because I am feeling uninspired and hope a short stroll and change of scenery will help jolt my creativity, sometimes because I am away from home and just plain need a pit stop with […]

I am convinced we are both overtly and subtly influenced by the space we are in, including our work place. We need what works best for us so we can feel ‘right’ and do our best creative work. Vibe is important! How Sense of Place Influences Creativity During years of designing landscapes and gardens, I […]

Do you think clutter provides a richly stimulating environment for creativity or does it cause confusion in your mind? Some people insist that a neat and tidy environment is a prerequisite for getting down to productive work. I’m not so sure. Neat and Tidy is Productive In her MyAmericanArtist.com blog post Clutter Causes Confusion, Lori […]

Listed below are a few deceptively simple ways to implement small incremental changes to help you become accustomed to generating fresh thought patterns and building creative momentum. Changing routine habits helps develop and strengthen your creativity “muscle”. As your mind becomes accustomed to processing change and filtering experiences through different perspectives, it also becomes increasingly […]

Ultimately, whether creative ideas are large or small, they are firmly rooted in the details we process through our minds. Every new idea, regardless of scope, begins from a small detail, something that catches our attention and holds us rapt long enough to think outside the immediate. All it takes for this to occur is […]