How to be creative
This feels like the most important question of my life right now. It seems to allude me in lots of ways and there are many factors.
Let me give some context for those just tuning in: at the beginning of this year I challenged myself to create a short clip, film or acting snippet every day.
So everyday I make, wether inspiration strikes or (as is more often the case) perspiration strikes in the form of “oh no, I haven’t made anything yet”.
The results, as you can imagine are varied, heck go and see for yourself: https://www.tiktok.com/@justinrogersnz
So each day, I’m actively asking the question (out of emergency need) “how the heck can I be more creative?!”
Enter Dave Burgess.
I mentioned in another post that I’m reading Dave’s book, Teach Like A Pirate. It’s great, you should read it too.
He talks about using questions in order to prompt our creativity. Dave says its pretty hopeless to wait for inspiration to strike- I’m certainly guilty of this and I think that’s because I have indeed randomly got ideas to turn into my little daily morsels.
Dave encourages us to engage instead in the process. A key part of which is the asking of effective questions.
It’s “What are three ways I could walk in this door that I find fun” (specific)
Over “What the heck should I make?!” (too broad and scary)
I’m excited and inspired by Dave’s example here- that just because it can look like magic, creativity is not magic. It’s a craft and one that can (and should) be practiced.
Fishing
They say the fishing is best where there’s less fishermen. Sure there’s many fish in some ponds but there’s also many fishermen.
How can you be in your own category at what you do?
Maybe it’s not the amount of fish you should be counting but the ratio of fish to rods.
Slow down to go fast
I was editing today and I had just discovered a shortcut to double the playback speed on the clip I’m working on. This is great because it means I can check the edit without needing watch it back in real time over and over again.
What started as a great help ended up being a great hinderance as I needed to edit out particular spots and kept having to go back because the speed of the playback meant I was missing the cut point! So my search for efficiency actually had the opposite effect.
Sure, speed can be an asset but ironcally it can also slow you down.
In what areas can you slow down to go faster?
The hour of power
An hour of power is a sequence of actions you can take in the morning to start your day right. If the name sounds corny GOOD, that means you’ll remember it!
Here’s an hour of power sequence you can try:
30 minute walk
10 Minute yoga
10 Meditation
10 Minute Journalling
Change and rearrange as needed- but it’s quite a fun prompt for oneself: what can I do for an hour in the morning that would make the rest of my day awesome?
Sequence
Be sure you’re doing the right thing at the right time.
Today I began planning a big chunk of lessons for my website. It’s quite a massive undertaking because the educational videos I’ll make have to link not only to the school curriculum, but they have to build on what we’ve already covered AND have to precede learning the students will get to as they get older.
In other words, there are many moving parts to making the puzzle fit.
I made the mistake of jumping straight into the spreadsheet where I plan all the lessons. It’s quite an overwhelming document and had me in the deep end of details too soon.
There is a missing step here. Before diving into the specifics, I realised I was allowed to do a bit of dreaming first.
So instead of trying to fill in fine details directly into the planning document, I instead took a step back and made a ‘dream’ list. What would be cool to include? What would I enjoy?
If you’re finding a task difficult, take a step back and check if there is a broader task earlier in the sequence you can tackle first.
What can you connect to?
I’m reading Dave Burgess’ book Teach Like A Pirate (It’s great, read it) and he talks about the different ways we can teach from a place of strength if the content we have to deliver doesn’t immediately do it for us.
He encourages us to connect instead to what it is that makes us passionate about teaching. Why are we here in the first place? Is it raising student self esteem? Illuminating a world of endless possibilities? Making them feel seen, heard and respected?
Whatever it is for you, Dave encourages us to plug into that so we can deliver at our best no matter the lesson content.
What serves you?
You can believe anything- the real question is: does it serve you?
You could believe there is a little more learning to be done before you start (hint, there’ll always be more)
OR
You could believe that all you need is within you already.
Anything you don’t know, you have the capacity to pick up. AND best of all there is a mountain of gold within you already waiting to be used that you mightn’t even realise is there until you ask for it.
The big thing and the little thing
What is the big thing, that if you got it done, it would make all the difference to your productivity?
What is the little thing you can do now toward it?
Max heat
There’s often one single action that would yield the highest returns for you on a given day.
For me it always involves other people- I think it’s because of the accountability factor as well as the multiplying factor of a another brain.
You can spend all day writing a scene that might be funny. Or you can invite an actor friend over and test it out and see if it works in minutes. You can craft the perfect sales pitch, or you can pick up the phone and try it out.
Actions that give you the maximum ‘heat’ for the minimum effort are the ones you want to be alive to and capitilise on. For me, a phone call or a zoom will leap me forward in a big way.
What are the action items that will take you the closest the fastest? Here’s a hint; they’re often the things you are most afraid to do…
Easier than you think
Sometimes the big difficult thing you’re avoiding all day actually turns out to be easy. For this to be the case, you have to give it permission to be easy. To loosen the screws, try these:
How long would it actually take?
What would it look like if it were easy?
What’s the 10 minute version I can do now?
How can it actually be fun?