The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry is a great book about prepping yourself to do your best creative work and generate good ideas consistently and purposefully. By creative work Henry doesn’t mean just those professions in a typically creative field, such as the arts or advertising. He says, “You may even cringe when you hear the word [creative] applied to you. […] You may prefer the term ‘strategist’ or ‘manager’ or something else that feels more concrete. Call yourself anything you want, but if you’re responsible for solving problems, developing strategies, or otherwise straining your brain for new ideas, I’m going to call you a creative—even if you ended up being one accidentally.”
Henry shares his methods and insights for all of us, creatives or “accidental creatives,” to create faster, better and more effectively to fulfill the demands of our lives.
One of the strategies that he suggests as a way to enrich relationships and enrich our mental ability to create is called head-to-heads. “We rise to the level of our competition,” says Henry, “we need others in our life to help us stretch and grow.”
He draws a parallel with sports, where you compete with others head-to-head, such as in running, and this helps you keep the pace. The same principle is applied to your creative life as Henry suggests establishing the practice of head-to-heads.
“In a head-to-head meeting, to people get together, and each party is responsible for sharing new insights and new resources they’ve encountered since the last meeting.” Here are four principles to set up effective head-to-heads:
1. Set a time and be consistent. “Agree to a date, time, meeting place and frequency for the meetings with the other person. Choose someplace quiet and comfortable and make it a priority on your calendar. Once a month is a good frequency because it leaves enough time between meetings for each of you to have experienced something new to share and to have generated a few fresh insights that would make for interesting conversation.”
2. Vary your subject matter. “Don’t harp on the same topic month after month. The idea is to challenge each other with new insights and to spark conversation about things that may otherwise never show up on the other person’s radar.”
3. Choose someone you respect and admire. “Preferably someone within your area of expertise. This will enhance the conversation when you get together, leading to ideas and insights more appropriate to each person’s context. Ask yourself, ‘If I could see inside of anyone’s notebook right now, just to see what they’re currently thinking, who would it be?”
4. Prepare about 15 minutes of content. “Don’t just show up with a sandwich. Spend time putting together materials to discuss. Build them around a topic or insight that you are presently working on or just fascinated by. Again, choose a topic of potential interest to both of you.”
The topics you select are up to you and your creative goals. Henry suggests asking the following questions: “What are you currently interested in or curious about? What have you read or experienced recently that you think the other person knows very little about? What new insights or thoughts have you had that are ripe for application?”
These head-to-heads are a fantastic opportunity to build strong relationships as they challenge and stimulate both of you with the new insights. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
ACTION
TODAY: Think of someone with whom you would like to set up a head-to-head set of meetings and touch base with that person to see if he/she is interested. Set up a time to meet. You don’t have to make a lifelong commitment to do it, simply set up an initial amount of meetings, say 3 or 4, and then review how each of you is doing and whether you want to continue.
FUTURE: Following the principle of building a FAB PAB, where you set up your own advisory board for a particular project, think also about setting a head-to-head for a particular season or a particular project. This way it may be less daunting, more focused and then you can decide—when it naturally comes to an end—whether you want to continue.
Have someone in mind for a head-to-head? Send him or her this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
What would you do with a gift of 90+ hours/year to spend however you see fit?
To explain this, let me share this scenario, and you tell me if it sounds familiar:
“You come into your office, and there on your desk sit three folders and two letters that you must respond to. You look at the first letter and read a few sentences. Dealing with it is clearly going to take more time than you have right now. You put it aside. In one of your folders is another task. You handle that task and your phone rings. You answer the phone and get pulled in a new direction for 10 to 15 minutes. Then you go back to the folder, but, just as you do, an email comes in. You stop to read the email, which contains a task that must be dealt with but requires more time than you have right now.”
Can you identify with this? If you spend “just 15 minutes every day to revisit, readdress, or reread documents or emails, you will waste 91 hours per year where no action is taken.” (!)
Chet Holmes, business guru and author of The Ultimate Sales Machine, had a simple, yet practical and very effective way of handling paperwork and email: deal with each thing just once.
“If you touch it, take action. […] Don’t open that email or letter until you are ready to deal with it.”
And dealing with it may take many forms, but at the very least, it means adding the action to your to-do list and saving the email to a particular folder. Holmes says, “the more files you have for work in progress and the more organized you can be in that process, the more productive you will be. So, for example, suppose I open my email from my PR firm that requires me to approve a press release. I have a PR folder. On my to-do list I write, ‘Approve press release. See PR folder.’ That’s how organized you need to be today.”
Short and simple, yet profound in changing the way we work and handle the demands for our time. Plus, the amount of time we’ll save from not having to revisit is astonishing! (For other time saving tips, read this post from Time Traps.)
ACTION
TODAY: Try this touch-it-once approach today and see how much time you save and how much more organized you get.
FUTURE: Make this touch-it-once philosophy a part of your productivity habits. As with every new habit, it will take time and tweaking to adapt to your specific needs, yet I strongly suggest giving it a shot since it will save you much time!
Know someone who’s wasting much time on revisiting things? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
Designing Your Life is a fantastic book that guides the reader to build an intentionally meaningful and joyful life. It’s a fantastic and highly recommended read! (Hmmmm, miniseries, anyone?)
Both authors are engineers and, as such, they are very well versed in the design of solutions for problems. They teach this approach—“design thinking”—to help you design and live the life you want.
Yet one of the things that they have encountered time and again is people fighting gravity, so to speak. “Gravity problems” as they’ve dubbed them, are those problems on which you cannot take any action. These problems simply exist, yet we tend to get mired in them somehow.
“I’ve got this big problem and I don’t know what to do about it.” “Oh, wow, Jane, what’s the problem?” “It’s gravity.” “Gravity?” “Yeah—it’s making me crazy! I’m feeling heavier and heavier. I can’t get my bike up hills easily. It never leaves me. I don’t know what to do about it. Can you help me?”
While even the authors cite this is a silly example, it’s an accurate representation of how we sometimes spend our precious time on trying to solve the wrong problem:
“The company I work for has been family-owned for five generations. There is no way that, as an outsider, I’m ever going to be an executive. What do I do about it?”
“I’ve been out of work for five years. It’s going to be much harder for me to get a job and that is not fair. What do I do about it?”
“I want to go back to school and become a doctor, but it will take me at least ten years, and I don’t want to invest that much time at this stage of my life. What do I do about it?”
The authors say that these “gravity problems” are not even problems. We may perceive them as such, but each one is “a situation, a circumstance, a fact of life. It may be a drag (so to speak), but, like gravity, it’s not a problem that can be solved.” It is the reality of things and when we argue or try to fight it, reality always wins. “You can’t outsmart it. You can’t trick it. You can’t bend it to your will. Not now. Not ever.”
So, should we just give up?
No!
What do we do about it?
One word: Reframe. “They key is not to get stuck on something that you have effectively no chance of succeeding at. We are all for aggressive and world-changing goals. […] But do it smart. If you become open-minded enough to accept reality, you’ll be freed to reframe an actionable problem and design a way to participate in the world on things that matter to you and might even work. “
The authors wisely say that the only response to a gravity problem is acceptance. And acceptance is what enables us to reframe situations and be able to solve the problems they create for us. Solving the problem will take many forms, and one of those—which is valid every time—is to simply change our minds.
So, let’s do a quick reframing of the above instances:
In the case of the family-owned company: you don’t stand a chance to be part of the C-Suite. Reframing: you can do the very best job you can do and decide to stay there and be happy, regardless of the title they give you. You can become the expert at running your division of the business. Or you can always look for a job elsewhere where you can grow if the title and position in the org chart are of utmost importance to you. Depends on your situation and your goals.
In the case of being out of work: you can’t change how recruiters think and perceive you and the gap in your resume. Reframing: you can change how you appear to recruiters. Take the volunteer roles you’ve been in and list some significant professional results, for example. That’s impressive!
In the case of med school: you can’t change the length of the studies. Reframing: you can remind yourself that much sooner than 10 years you can start treating patients as a resident in a hospital. Or you can become a physician’s assistant and do a few similar things to what doctors do, with much less training and cost. Or enter the wellness field from a non-clinical angle.
Once you reframe, then you are able to move into the direction of your choice. Prior to that, the battle has no solution and is all in your mind.
I’ll leave you with a quote from another one of my favorite authors, which encompasses the essence of reframing:
“Once you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Wayne Dyer
ACTION
TODAY: Think for a moment: What sort of gravity problems are you fighting in your mind? Have they become so prevalent that they are part of your identity? (How many times have we heard someone introduce him or herself, as “I’m a frustrated teacher/lawyer/banker”? [Fill in the profession blank.]) Don’t fight gravity. Work with it instead. How can you reframe those problems?
FUTURE: As you look at new problems that emerge, give some thought to what’s going on in your mind. Are you approaching them as gravity problems, not knowing necessarily what you can do about them? How about acceptance and reframing? Easier said than done, indeed. Yet the burden is lifted almost instantly once we feel the relief acceptance brings; and we can take action to solve the problems once we have made a decision through reframing.
Know someone who’s fighting gravity? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
The stories that illustrate the points in the book are incredible lessons of courage, hope, and determination in the face of the worst possible adversity and difficulty—both physical and emotional—that anyone can muster. Whether you serve in uniform or not, the lessons apply to all of us, regardless of our path in life.
The first lesson is wonderful. It’s simply this: make your bed every morning. It’s the importance of starting the day with a task completed. Instead of telling you the story, I will let McRaven’s words tell it to you directly, as I’m quoting his speech verbatim.
Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack — that’s Navy talk for bed.
It was a simple task — mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.
If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.
If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
Here’s the video of the commencement speech. The bed-making story starts at the 4:37 minute mark, but it’s well worth watching the whole 20 min if you have the time. If you prefer to read the speech you can do so here.
ACTION
TODAY: Make your bed. Years ago I heard someone say, “How you do one thing is how you do everything,” and that has stayed with me throughout the years. It echoes what McRaven says: If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
FUTURE: The habit and discipline of making your bed is illustrative of building a solid foundation. Only by starting with small things you get to the big things. Zig Ziglar said it well: “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” So start today by making your bed, and keep making it every day. And along that path, build the habits that will take you towards the greatness that you seek and the change you want to make in the world.
Know someone who needs to make their bed? Please share this post with that person: you can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
“The research on the consequences of noise on productivity is fairly straightforward: for the bulk of the tasks performed in the knowledge economy, quiet is always better than noise.” With this in mind, here are a few suggestions from Davis to stay focused.
Close the door. No office? “Reserve a conference room or set up camp somewhere that is largely free of noise and other potential distractions. A place with privacy that is away from noise distractions will be more favorable to productivity.”
Cancel noise. If your space is shared and you have to stay there, wear noise-cancelling headphones. Alternatively, “those little squishy orange earplugs can sometimes do the trick too, and you can take them anywhere. You may look weird, but you’ll be more productive.”
Turn it off. Don’t watch TV or listen to music or talk radio.
Creativity. “If you’re taking on a task that requires lots of creativity, enjoy background noise. You may actually consider heading for the company’s busy cafeteria or a local coffee shop, or putting on a little music.”
Carve quiet time. If you can, make some quiet time for you: get up early, stay up late or work in a quiet and uninterrupted environment.
Light
Light, just as noise, is another stimulus we can often control. “Both blue light and bright white light seem to enhance a number of the mental faculties that can help us be highly effective. […] That kind of light influences things like alertness and concentration, and it can help us recharge after mental fatigue.”
Further, our eyes were not just made for vision. There are cells in them that “connect to a part of the brain responsible for maintaining circadian rhythms… [thus guiding] sleep, wake, eating and energy cycles throughout the day.”
Davis recommends:
More lights. “A brightly lit room is better for being at your mental best than a darker one, especially if it’s a cloudy day or the middle of the winter. If you have to, bring your own lamp to the office.”
Natural light. “If you can, be somewhere with ambient natural light on a day with clear blue skies, and set yourself up to work there.”
Lightbulbs. “Consider replacing the current lightbulbs in your workspace with white lights that include more of the blue spectrum, even if it’s just at your desk lamp.”
Creativity. “Dim your lights a bit or find a spot that’s a little darker than usual when you want to work on a project that requires creativity.”
Immediate workspace
According to Davis’ research, our immediate workspace is the part of the work environment that we can influence in some important ways with some relatively minor tweaks.
Clutter. “Perhaps clutter works for a very few people. But for the vast majority of us, clutter is a hindrance to our mental performance. […] Clear the clutter. […] If you don’t have the time to clear it, simply move it somewhere that is out of sight.”
Expansive movement. “Place your phone, your glass of water, your pen and any other work tools at the far corners of your desk, where you will need to reach for them expansively. If you feel tense, sit back for a minute, expand your chest and spread your arms out.” Adopt some power poses to shift your mental state.
Sitting. “Don’t sit at your desk for too long. We tend to become engrossed in working, so it will probably not be too much if you get up every time you think of doing so. If you can choose your workspace, choose one where getting up and moving around is easy to do.” Find a place where you can sit and work, and another where you can stand and work, and alternate between them.
Personalization. Regardless of noise, light, no clutter and movement, you will eventually get fatigued. Add your personal touch to your workspace in some way with objects and visuals to recharge your mental energy. “Specifically, consider adding some plants or images of water. When you personalize your space, though, don’t do it by adding clutter to your desk.” If you have a beautiful view, don’t forget to look outside.
The strategies described here today and throughout this miniseries are effective because their implementation is simple and easy, and also because they work with your biology, not against it. Davis believes that the biggest challenge resulting from our work culture is being overwhelmed. He says, “By becoming students of how human beings can work most effectively, we all can increase our self-compassion, master our work, and gain control over our lives.” It is my sincere hope that this miniseries will help you accomplish all that and become your most effective and productive. Let me know how you liked the miniseries!
ACTION
TODAY & FUTURE: Take a look around at your workspace: how can you set it up to help you achieve maximum productivity?
Know someone who could benefit from reading this? Please share the miniseries with that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
TODAY’S IDEA: Head-to-heads
