Posts tagged as:

Creative Life

Blue Moon Creativity Quirks

by Barbara Martin on June 16, 2010

in How to Tips

 
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 under [...]

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10 Steps to Unlock Your Creativity

by Barbara Martin on September 17, 2009

in Creativity, Creativity at Work, How to Tips

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 [...]

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Fun Changes Boost Creativity

by Barbara Martin on September 8, 2009

in How to Tips

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 you [...]

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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 [...]

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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 learned to [...]

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Do You Mind Creative Clutter ?

by Barbara Martin on August 17, 2009

in Creativity, Creativity at Work

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 Woodward [...]

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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 [...]

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How Small Changes Increase Creativity

by Barbara Martin on August 11, 2009

in How to Tips

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 [...]

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You know how you come back from vacation or the weekend at the same time relaxed but also all jazzed up and ready to roll? And then you re-enter the routine of daily life and the energy seeps out of your being until you are right back where you started with the same sapped-out feeling [...]

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Random Find Fish Eggs

by Barbara Martin on July 29, 2009

in Creative Juice, Random

Today I found a half emptied sack of colorful Easter candy stuffed willy-nilly in the back of a kitchen drawer along with a vast quantity of spilled catnip, a set of batteries, some elastic bands and who knows what else. Do you have a drawer like that?
I thought of the fish plate while delicately [...]

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