How To Boost Your Creative Output (Part 2)

The most important way you can boost your output is to get rid of the zero-sum assumption. If you feel that each idea created limits your ability to create new ideas, your output will be only a trickle. The best writers, programmers, designers and idea-generators I know believe that the supply of ideas is endless. You only need to know how to turn on the flow.Here are some tips to get you started:

Churn Without Judgment If you stress about the quality of work you are outputting, then the flow will be cut off. Writers block is a symptom of perfectionism. Churn first, judge later. 

Idea Breeding Use past ideas to generate new ideas. I've written close to 500 articles in the past two years. If I ever get stuck, all I need to do is search through past articles. Almost always they leave unanswered questions that can be tackled with a new article.

Creative Input Feed your brain with books. I read about 50-70 books a year. The most creative people I know can read over a 100. By devouring knowledge you add to the variety of ideas you can produce. 

Be Patient It can take a while for your brain to get into the right flow. I can write 1500 words in an hour when I'm in the right mental state. But that state often requires working through twenty minutes where I type no more than a sentence. Take the time to accelerate your creative flow. 

Use Large Time Chunks Since it takes time to warm up your creative muscles, you can't expect to go fast if you are constantly stopping. Use large chunks of time where you can build up speed and work for a few hours before taking a break.

Publish Garbage If you are starting out in a new pursuit, you have only one goal: boost creative output. This often means publishing junk until you train yourself to do a better job. Feedback from the world (not self-judgement) is the fastest way to hone your creative flow. 

Set a Quota Give yourself a certain output criteria for each day, week or month. This will build up a high creative output that can later be refined. Instead of just creating when you feel like it, set a target. Sometimes you'll produce garbage. But you'll also produce a lot more winners than by being a perfectionist.

Hit the Challenge Zone If you set too few standards for quality, you won't improve. But if you set too high standards, your creative output will plummet. The challenge zone is the area where you have enough challenge to improve yourself but not so much that you can't perform. 

Aim With Your Challenge Zone There is a tendency to use external factors to define your standards. For example, you want to become a musician, so you decide to set your standards to one of your favorite bands. This is a mistake. By setting the challenge zone to external criteria you kill your creative output or kill your quality. You only need to compete with yourself; don't judge yourself by others' standards.

Nuke Those Assumptions If you assume that your creative output is fixed, it will be. Set yourself a high quota and aim within your challenge zone. You'll probably be surprised at how much more you can produce if you force yourself to. More importantly, you'll probably be surprised that quality doesn't usually suffer when you boost creative output.

 

Scott Young is a university student who writes about productivity, habits and self-improvement. http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/

How To Boost Your Creative Output (Part 1)

Working productively can be broken down into several key skills: time management, organization and controlling your attention and energy. One of the often neglected but most important factors is your creative output. Successful people tend to have an unusually high creative output and I'd like to offer some tips for how you can boost yours.

What is Creativity?

Creativity is often compared with originality. When you see someone who can come up with unique ideas, you say they are "creative". Picasso was creative because of his unique painting style. J.R.R. Tolkien was creative for writing "The Lord of the Rings" while Linus Torvalds is considered creative for starting Linux.There is another way of viewing creativity. The root word of creativity is create. Creativity can be seen not just on how original your ideas are, but on how many of them you can produce. Creative output is a measure of your ability to churn out creations.Thomas Edison held over a thousand patents in his name. Leonardo da Vinci was an astronomer, painter, engineer, inventor, poet and writer. Although both had unique ideas, their creative output dwarfed most of their colleagues.

Why Does Creative Output Matter?

Isn't quality supposed to be more important than quantity? The problem is that with creative output, quality and quantity are completely independent. A few people have gotten the wrong idea about creative output, the myth that having a higher output will somehow reduce the quality of the ideas you create. Having a high quantity of ideas doesn't reduce the quality of ideas; quantity enhances quality. I write for several sites as well as my own. A couple of fellow bloggers disagreed with this strategy. Won't you be giving away your best ideas so other websites will profit from them, they asked? This assumes that each idea I create reduces the total ideas available to write about. But that's ridiculous.Ideas are not zero-sum. Having one idea doesn't reduce the amount of ideas you are able to produce. Boosting your creative output requires changing how you channel attention. It has nothing to do with depleting an imaginary idea-bank inside your brain.

15 Steps To Cultivate Lifelong Learning (PART 3)

(11) Start a Project

Set out to do something you don't know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don't know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting.

(12) Follow Your Intuition

Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can't be sure what to expect and there isn't always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, to the extent that making choices on a whim has almost been stamped out.

(13) The Morning Fifteen

Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don't put it off until later in the day when urgent activities will push it out of the way.

(14) Reap the Rewards

Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help to accomplish. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride.

(15) Make it a Priority

Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.

Scott Young is a university student who writes about productivity, habits and self-improvement. http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/

15 Steps To Cultivate Lifelong Learning (PART 2)

(6) Teach Others

You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet for communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.

(7) Clean Your Input

Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months I realize I'm collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts.

(8) Learn in Groups

Lifelong learning doesn't mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and group learning events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience.

(9) Unlearn Assumptions

You can't add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview.

(10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning

Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn't have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don't spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn't challenge you.

Scott Young is a university student who writes about productivity, habits and self-improvement. http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/