I’ve definitely had the experience where having a focus or a restriction can really help me get a creative project accomplished. Those types of limitations are particularly useful when I am trying to achieve a specific creative outcome. Or another way of saying that is when I am headed towards a particular destination.

But there are other times when I am in need of a pure creative journey. Where I don’t know where I am going and I am only interested in noodling and play and the outcome doesn’t matter at all. Only the experience of creating. I have this while painting or in stream of consciousness writing. When I am creating in this way I am often very surprised by what shows up and it doesn’t always make sense but it is incredibly fun and liberating.

Both of these ways of being creative feed each other for me. If I’m continually focused on only the destination kind of creativity I tend to get kind of burned out and cranky and if I’m only in creativity as a process I miss the satisfaction and fulfillment that completing and crafting something can give me.

Thanks for the post!

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I do good, though:

1. I don’t couch potato. Never have. Never will. (But too many hours at the desk is similar.

2. I don’t eat junk (much). Poutine does not count.

3. Sleep. Ah, yes… Crash and burn between 9 and 10am. Nothing in my room but a bed, either. And I’ve woken naturally at about 5am for two years running now. Mornings rock. (With coffee.)

4. Today’s weekend menu is a croissanwich with ham, eggs and Gouda.

I don’t know how old you are. I’m 61 next month and we old goats always think we have something important to say to the young’uns.

If you are a kid (and anyone who can’t remember Eisenhower and never knew a time before TV is a kid to me), please listen to the old grump on this:

Your health is important to your brain. Good food, healthy food, proper sleep, proper exercise is critical.

Suppose I could give you the most fantastic machine you could imagine – it does EVERYTHING for you! It earns money, it entertains you, it can write books, it can make your friends laugh.. it’s a fantastic machine and it’s free but it requires maintenence to work well: food, rest, sleep, exercise.

Would you perform the maintenance? Would you if I told you that even though it is free, you only get one and you can’t replace it and although sometimes it can be repaired that can be very expensive.. and often the repairs aren’t that good?

Don’t abuse that machine. Treat it like it was the most important thing you ever owned. Because it is.

As I said, I’m 61. I have a good healthy breakfast every day – usually a yogurt shake with bananas, apples and pears. I eat lots of nuts and legumes – eat very little meat and plenty of veggies of all kinds. I don’t drink soda, only water, juices and milk. I sleep whatever hours I need to be rested and I exercise regularly. I’ve been living like that a long, long time and it has paid off – in health, in apparent age, in brain power, in creativity, in EVERYTHING.

Don’t be a couch potato. Don’t eat junk. Get the rest you need. Make it all the way you live your life. You’ll thank me later.

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@ Mark – Ugh. Keyword research. Ugh. That’s all I’ll say.

I blame the French in me that I had to look up lippogram. Sounded nasty.

@ Omar – Ideas are always so vast. But you see? You yourself mention that you need to narrow it down – so you restrict yourself to get the best!

@ Tony – You mention something really important that most web workers neglect: Sleep and food improve creativity.

For example, I forget to eat. Frequently. By the time I do remember, I’m so hungry I grab anything at hand just to get sustenance. It’s usually the wrong food for brain power.

A couple of weeks ago, I forced myself to make a bowl of cereal each morning (sounds like nothing; trust me, it was tough, both to remember and to eat when I wasn’t hungry).

Voila. I had about two hours more creative thinking, calmer mood and sharper insight each afternoon. My crash hour wasn’t at 2pm anymore. It pushed to 4pm.

Amazing. Food. Who’da thunk?

@ Kelly – Okay. When you put it that way… No. I don’t want a plumber operating on my brain. But I admit the thought of someone sweeping in and solving all my problems in a day was a nice dream for a while.

‘Till you smashed that, of course.

*drops arm.*

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