How to survive creative burnout

By Scott Berkun, June 2004
The longer you work at creating things, whether it’s software, websites, essays or paintings, the greater the odds you’ll hit a day where you don’t feel like doing it anymore. Up until then, you may have heard others describe burnout, but you just shrugged it off as superstition, or perhaps believed yourself immune. But the day it hits you, the world seems suddenly grey. What was once fun and challenging feel stupid and annoying. Or perhaps the things that used to motivate or move you don’t resonate at all. You feel nothing for them. It all just seems like so much more crap to deal with. If this sounds familiar, or you fear that this day is in your future, this essay is for you.

How to know when you’re burned out

The first thing to realize is that everyone’s creative energies come from different places. The reasons you might feel stuck or empty will be different from your friends and co-workers. So don’t be surprised that while you’re feeling low, others around you aren’t. Creative work, no matter how it’s defined, is personal stuff, and comes from your unique combination of qualities and feelings that make you, you. So just because you’re not running through the halls screaming about how much you love your job, while the rest of the people on your floor are dancing in the halls, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. You’re you: they’re not. You should not want to be them, and they should not want to be you (What a boring world we’d have if we were all simultaneously trying to be someone else. Oh wait…).
To be yourself you have to sometimes deal with feelings that only you are feeling. Burnout means you’ve pushed your creative energy beyond the point of recovery. Like a well of water, creative energy replenishes itself slowly over time. A person who has pushed their creative well too hard for too long will, like its watery counterpart, one day find it empty. They’ve pushed too far. Usually by the time you notice something is seriously wrong, there’s very little left to work with. Burnout then is something, once experienced, a wise person learns how to avoid and manage (which we’ll talk about later). But right now, lets cover some of the common signs that you’ve become toasty:

• You dread waking up (unless this is not unusual for you)
• You don’t care about something you were passionate about
• You saw the title of this essay and felt a ray of hope
• Inspired, motivated creative people annoy you
• Everything seems gray and pointless
• You’re drinking or eating more, or showing whatever your signs of depression are
• You find it hard to relax
• It’s impossible to do basic you’re capable of

But be warned: before you chalk it up to creative burnout, be aware that there are some other problems that can easily be confused with it. How is the morale in your workplace? Are people generally ok and happy, or is the vibe downbeat or postal? There may be other issues going that are having a negative emotional impact on you. It might not be creative burnout, as much as some other unhealthy workplace or work relationship issue. Most probably, there are several issues you’re dealing with at the same time, including issues at home or with family, that are contributing to how you’re feeling. Sorting it out can take time, and it’s rarely helpful to blame everything going on in your life on one or two specific events, people, or environments.

Surviving burn out

Using the well example again, what would you do if you ran out of water? Would you become one with your couch, pizza in hand, watching movies all day long, leaving it to the fates to decide if you’ll ever drink water again? I think not. You’d go out to the store, or perhaps to a neighbor’s house and ask to borrow some of theirs. Burnout is entirely survivable. Creative people get burnt all the time, to varying degrees, and many of them develop the habits that allow them to come back, sometimes stronger or more motivated that they were before. The well will fill again all on it’s own, unless you do something really really stupid (Say, start taking drugs, staying all night and trying to plow through even though that never works for you, giving up completely and joining the army, etc.)
The best place to start with survival tactics is with your teammates and co-workers. Pick the one person who you relate to best, and tell them how you feel. “Hey, dude, I’m so burned out right now.” 9 times out of 10 you’ll get more support and encouragement than you expected. If the person you confide in is cool and empathetic, they’ll hear you out, ask you what they can do tell help, and establish a base camp of support. Even if the conversation lasts 25 seconds, you’ll feel more human, and the burden of crappy feelings won’t be on your shoulders alone. If you have specific things they can do to cheer you up, name them. Be specific.
Do you want them to try and make you laugh? Do you want encouragement? Do you want them to listen to you vent and complain now and then? Dance outside your office when they walk by? They can’t know how to help you if you don’t tell them. If your manager understands anything about creative work, it’s in his or her interest to help you deal with burnout. Even with the most calculating and evil manager, if you report to them you’re an asset to them. When you’re toasty, you’re at risk of crashing completely and become entirely useless.
So even if they see you as a yuppified form of urban cattle, they want you producing and creating over the long haul. If they can convert weeks of malaise and crappy work into a handful of days, it’s entirely in their interest to do so. It’s pure economics. A more likely situation is that, if your manager is paying any attention at all, they already know there’s something wrong. They can sense the difference in your behavior in meetings, and see the quality or precision of the work you’re producing. A good manager would ask and investigate to find out what’s wrong (it’s their job), but some don’t know what to say. In that case, it’s up to you.
Here’s an easy way to go: “Hey boss. I’m concerned about something. I haven’t been as motivated as I’d like on this project for the last 2 weeks. I’m trying to figure out why, and it’s possible I’m burnt out on some aspect of this work. If you have suggestions for me, I’m open to them, but I just wanted to make sure you were aware of what’s going on. I’ll keep you posted as I figure out what we can do about it.” By starting a conversation like this, you take responsibility for you burnout. You score points with you manager (and with yourself) for be aware of what’s going on, and taking a mature and open course of action about it. Generally, things go better for person A, if person A takes action about what person A is feeling. For myself, I can’t say I’ve always been person A, but I realize that when I take the weaker, easier, person B path of ignoring and denying the entire situation (any my feelings about it), it rarely works to my advantage. Person B’s life expectancy, and quality of life, is probably never as good person A.

Survival tactics

In then end, I’ve found that talking with other people won’t dramatically change the way you feel. It’s important to talk and express things, since expressing feelings is the only way to work through them, but in the end, change only comes from within. Change is slow, tricky and unpredictable, but everyone has certain triggers or experiences that help them shake things up more than others. Since everyone’s different, the approaches for how to work through it often have to be discovered by you. Here’s some of the things that I know have worked for me, and other designers and engineers I’ve worked with, but I recommend serious experimentation on your own:

• Plan an escape. Take a day off and do the most dramatically easy but fun thing you can think of. Go see a matinee downtown, have a fantastic lunch, shop, browse, and walk. Be as indulgent as you can stand, and drag as many of your friends along with you. (Offer to return the favor with them when they’re burnt out.). Use a vacation day, or a sick day (Isn’t burnout a form of poor mental health?)
• Laugh. Whatever it is you find funny, bring more of it into your life. Whether it’s certain people, films, tv shows, plays, books. Choose to laugh.
• Scream. I’m a believer in primal screams. I always feel better after I’ve yelled at the top of my lungs for no particular reason, doubly so if I’m pissed off about something. Practice different screams, such as yelling ordinary words (“Papaya!!!”) vs. generic scream sounds (“Aaaaaaaagggh!”). Get friends and co-workers to participate if you can. Even if alone, and you have to do it into a pillow or underwater to not upset the neighbors, do it anyway. You’ll feel better, I promise.
• Fun time: how much time per day do you do stuff purely for fun? Just because you like it and for no other reason? Why isn’t this number larger? What is more important than fun and happiness over the course of a lifetime?
• Sleep & Exercise. Unfortunately, our minds are connected to our bodies, and if we treat our bodies poorly, well, our minds kind of get pissed off. I’ve found that if I’m not getting enough exercise, I’m about half as useful to the world than otherwise. Start taking a walk every day. Go swimming. Have more/better sex. Free up your body, and your mind will follow.
• Travel: Get in the car, pick a direction, and drive. Grab friends, or not. Bring food, or not. Play music really loud, or just roll down the windows, and stick your head out (pssst.. this is a good time to scream). Use some vacation time, or ask for time without pay so you can stretch out your time (and your time may be more valuable than your money).

Beginning again

After you’ve made some effort to escape, and let the well fill up again, it’s time to get back to work. Sometimes the toasty feeling remains, even though you’ve filled up your credit cards, have seen every new film, and are exercising and laughing daily. Even with the most understanding boss or teammates, most people can’t afford to escape for very long. The work and the deadlines may have slipped back, but the work is still there. Here’s some advice for how to start again, and reconnect with the work at hand.

• Break things into smaller pieces. If you can’t design the whole website, or code the whole function, break it down. What are the smallest meaningful pieces to work with? Work on a page. Can’t do a page? Work on part of a page. Get down the smallest bit you feel you can manage, but do it. Like Guthrie said, take it easy, but take it. After you do one piece, find the strength to do the next one. If you can’t, go for a walk, call a friend, but then come back and try again. And on and on. One small piece at a time. If you’re lucky, once you’ve got a few pieces done, you’ll hit your stride and it won’t seem so bad. If not, just slug it out. At least you’ll be able to say tommorow you did something today.
• Look at the worst pieces of work you know of. The worst writing. The worst painting. The worst web design. Worst whatever. Do you feel anything when you look at the crap? Does it annoy you? Make you angry? Is there still a response there at all? Some energy somewhere in your gut? Can you redirect it?
• Repeat above, only with the best piece of work you know. Go to a museum, or your favorite building. Watch your favorite film, read your favorite book. Do you get any energy there? Anything you can bring with you into your own project?

Avoiding burn-out

After you’ve gone through it once, you might fall victim to the arrogance of invulnerability. The false idea that since you’ve been burnt to a crisp once and survived, you can do it again. Don’t be stupid. It’s pure denial you’re feeling, not confidence. As long as you take on tough assignments and push yourself creatively you run the risk of going to far, and to live up to your potential as a creative person, you have to find ways to push yourself without pushing too far.

• Change your work environment: What do you do at work when you feel stuck (not burnt out, but just stuck on a problem)? Are there things you can do to your cube or office to help you deal with those times? Posters of work that inspires you? Things that make you laugh? Music that helps you think through a problem? You spend 8 hours a day in that space: it’s worth taking a couple of hours to improve it by even 5 or 10%. If you suck at this and don’t know where to start (e.g. you’re male), ask a friend to help you out.
• Project assignments: How do you decide what project assignments to take? How can you find more variety in your work, so that there’s a chance you’ll develop new interests, or new skills? Real growth is the best burnout prevention technique. It’s easier to stay interested if the work and the people stay interesting.
• Work on more than one project at a time. My wife, an artist, never works on one painting at a time. When she feels stuck on one, she’ll move over to another and it always seems fresh and interesting, compared to the work she just left. I find the same thing with writing and designing. Find ways to give yourself alternatives, so that you can still be productive, while having the choice to temporarily skip a problem you are annoyed by or frustrated with.
• Managers and work relationships. Do you like the people you work with? I don’t know how long I could be creative if I fundamentally didn’t like or get along with my boss, or most of my co-workers. The real problem might not be creative at all. It might be the unhealthy nature of your work relationships. Time spent improving relationship skills creates the potential for change, while banging your head against the wall every day and complaining to friends probably doesn’t.
• Career & Lifestyle: How long have you been doing what you’re doing? Do you expect to do it forever? Perhaps you need bigger changes in your life that you’re getting. A new friend, a new lover, a new city, a new company, a new hobby, might be the only way to move your life forward.

Know Thyself

However you choose to deal with your situation, pay attention to yourself. What works and doesn’t work for you? When did you feel most inspired in your life? Least? What things in your life seem to influence your morale and motivation? No one can answer these questions but you. It’s often harder to figure out and listen to what your own needs are than to take advice from others. The sooner you sit down and allow your own truth to come out, the better off you’ll be.


Source:http://scottberkun.com

Ten Great Ways to Crush Creativity

Leaders have more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection. If you want to crush creativity in your organization and eliminate all the unnecessary bother of innovation then here are ten steps that are guaranteed to succeed.

1. Criticize

When you hear a new idea criticize it. Show how smart you are by pointing out some of the weaknesses and flaws which will hold it back. The more experienced you are, the easier it is to find fault with other people’s ideas. Decca Records turned down the Beatles, IBM rejected the photocopying idea which launched Xerox, DEC turned down the spreadsheet and various major publishers turned down the first Harry Potter novel. The same thing is happening in most organizations today. New ideas tend to be partly-formed so it is easy to reject them as ‘bad’. They diverge from the narrow focus that we have for the business so we discard them. Furthermore, every time somebody comes to you with an idea which you criticize, it discourages the person from wasting your time with more suggestions. It sends a message that new ideas are not welcome and that anyone who volunteers them is risking criticism or ridicule. This is a sure fire way to crush the creative spirit in your staff.

2. Ban brainstorms

Treat brainstorming as old-fashioned and passé. All that brainstorms do is throw up lots of new ideas that then have to be rejected. If your organization is not holding frequent brainstorm sessions to find creative solutions then you are not wasting time on new ideas. Instead you are sending a message to staff that their input is not required. If people insist on brainstorm meetings then make them long, rambling and unfocused with lots of criticism of radical ideas.

3. Hoard problems

The CEO and senior team should shoulder the responsibility for solving all the company’s major problems. Strategic issues are too complicated and high-level for the ordinary staff. After all, if people at the grass-roots knew the strategic challenges the organization faces then they would feel insecure and threatened. Don’t involve staff in serious issues, don’t tell them the big picture and above all don’t challenge them to come up with solutions.

4. Focus on efficiency not innovation

Focus solely on making the current business model work better. If we concentrate on making the current system work better then we will not waste time on looking for different systems. The current business model is the one that you helped develop and it is obviously the best one for the business. After all, if the makers of horse drawn carriages had improved quality they could have stopped automobiles taking their markets. The same principle applied with makers of slide rules, LP records, typewriters and gas lights.

5. Overwork

Establish a culture of long hours and hard work. Encourage the belief that hard work alone will solve the problem. We do not need to find a different way of solving a problem – rather we must just work harder at the old way of doing things. Make sure that the working day has no time for learning, fun, lateral thinking, wild ideas or testing of new initiatives.

6. Adhere to the plan

Plan in great detail and then do not deviate from the plan regardless of circumstances. ‘We cannot try that idea because it is not in the plan and we have no budget for it.’ Keep to the vision that was in the plan and ignore fads like market changes and customer fashions – they will pass.

7. Punish mistakes

If someone tries an entrepreneurial idea that fails then blame and retribution must follow. Reward success and punish failure. That way we will reinforce the existing way of doing things and discourage dangerous experiments.

8. Don’t look outside

We understand our business better than outsiders. After all we have been working in it for years. Other industries are fundamentally different and just because something works there does not mean it will work here. Consultants are generally over-priced and tell you things you could have figured out anyway. We need to find the solutions inside the business by working harder.

9. Promote people like you from within

Promoting from within is a good sign. It helps retain people and they can see a reward for loyalty and hard work. It means we don’t get polluted with heretical ideas from outside. Also if the CEO promotes people like him then he can achieve consistency and succession. It is best to find managers who agree with the CEO and praise him for his acumen and foresight.

10. Don’t waste money on training

Talent cannot be taught. It is it a rare thing possessed by a handful of gifted individuals. So why waste money trying to turn ducks into swans? Hire our kind of people and let them learn our system. Work them hard, keep them focused on our business model and do not allow them to fool around with crazy experiments. Workshops, budgets and time allocated to creativity and innovation are all wasteful extravagances. We know what we need to succeed so let’s just get on with it.


Source: http://www.lifehack.org

What Is the Theory of Your Firm?

by Todd Zenger

Photography: Courtesy of Pace Gallery

Artwork: Tara Donovan, Untitled, 2008, polyester film

If asked to define strategy, most executives would probably come up with something like this: Strategy involves discovering and targeting attractive markets and then crafting positions that deliver sustained competitive advantage in them. Companies achieve these positions by configuring and arranging resources and activities to provide either unique value to customers or common value at a uniquely low cost. This view of strategy as position remains central in business school curricula around the globe: Valuable positions, protected from imitation and appropriation, provide sustained profit streams.
Unfortunately, investors don’t reward senior managers for simply occupying and defending positions. Equity markets are full of companies with powerful positions and sluggish stock prices. The retail giant Walmart is a case in point. Few people would dispute that it remains a remarkable firm. Its early focus on building a regionally dense network of stores in small towns delivered a strong positional advantage. Complementary choices regarding advertising, pricing, and information technology all continue to support its low-cost and flexibly merchandised stores.
Despite this strong position and a successful strategic rollout, Walmart’s equity price has seen little growth for most of the past 12 or 13 years. That’s because the ongoing rollout was anticipated long ago, and investors seek evidence of newly discovered value—value of compounding magnitude. Merely sustaining prior financial returns, even if they are outstanding, does not significantly increase share price; tomorrow’s positive surprises must be worth more than yesterday’s.
Not surprisingly, I consistently advise MBA students that if they’re confronted with a choice between leading a poorly run company and leading a well-run one, they should choose the former. Imagine assuming the reins of GE from Jack Welch in September 2001 with shareholders’ having enjoyed a 40-fold increase in value over the prior two decades. The expectations baked into the share price of a company like that are daunting, to say the least.
To make matters worse, attempts to grow often undermine a company’s current market position. As Michael Porter, the leading proponent of strategy as positioning, has argued, “Efforts to grow blur uniqueness, create compromises, reduce fit, and ultimately undermine competitive advantage. In fact, the growth imperative is hazardous to strategy.” Quite simply, the logic of this perspective not only provides little guidance about how to sustain value creation but also discourages growth that might in any way move a company away from its current strategic position. Though it recognizes the dilemma, it offers no real advice beyond “Dig in.”
Essentially, a leader’s most vexing strategic challenge is not how to obtain or sustain competitive advantage—which has been the field of strategy’s primary focus—but, rather, how to keep finding new, unexpected ways to create value. In the following pages I offer what I call the corporate theory, which reveals how a given company can continue to create value. It is more than a strategy, more than a map to a position—it is a guide to the selection of strategies. The better its theory, the more successful an organization will be at recognizing and composing strategic choices that fuel sustained growth in value.
The Greatest Theory Ever Told Value creation in all realms, from product development to strategy, involves recombining a large number of existing elements. But picking the right combinations out of a vast array is like being a blind explorer on a rugged mountain range. The strategist cannot see the topography of the surrounding landscape—the true value of various combinations. All he or she can do is try to imagine what it is like.
In other words, leaders must draw from available knowledge and prior experience to develop a cognitive, theoretical model of the landscape and then make an educated guess about where to find valuable configurations of capabilities, activities, and resources. Actually composing the configurations will put the theory to the test. If it’s good, the leader will gain a refined vision of some portion of the adjacent topography—perhaps revealing other valuable configurations and extensions.


Source: hbr.org

The Secret to Creativity

The secret to creative thinking is to start with good problems. Then you need to turn those problems into thought provoking challenges. After that, great ideas will almost invent themselves.
Almost every creative idea is a potential solution to a problem. Einstein's theory of relativity was about solving a discrepancy between electromagnetism and physics. Post-its were about finding a use for not very sticky glue. Picasso's cubist paintings were about solving the problem of representing three dimensional space on two dimensional canvases. And so on and so on.
Before you even think about generating ideas, you need to turn your problem into a challenge. Because if you start generating ideas to solve the wrong problem, you may have great ideas - but they will probably be lousy solutions.

A self-employed woman is window shopping and sees a beautiful dress. She thinks that it would be perfect for an upcoming reception where she hopes to impress prospective clients. Sadly, the dress costs €3000 and her bank account is nearly empty. She thinks to herself: "how could I earn €3000 in order to buy that dress?" She might come up with some great ideas.
But the truth is, her problem has nothing to do with the dress. Her problem is that she needs to develop new business. One way to do that is to acquire new clients. Wearing a stunning dress to a reception might be one method of solving that problem. But there are many more solutions - and a lot of them are probably more cost effective than a €3000 dress, particularly if she hasn't much money.
Instead, she should be asking herself: "How might I acquire new clients for my business?" or better still, "In what ways might I develop more business?"
The latter question or challenge might lead to ideas like offering existing clients new products or services; increasing her prices; asking for referrals and other activities that have very little to do with new dresses and a great deal to do with building her business.

Most people are like the woman in the story above. When they have problems, they immediately look for solutions, sparing nary a thought for the problem itself. Creative people know better. They start by examining the problem and turning it into a creative challenge.
The best way to get started on turning your problem into a challenge is by writing down your problem in the centre of a sheet of paper. Now, try and break the problem down. Ask yourself "Why is this a problem?", "What is causing this?", "What is behind this?", "What other issues are at stake?" and so on. Ask "why?" until you can no longer answer yourself. Write all of your answers on the sheet of paper. At this stage, the core problem as well as key relevant issues will be apparent. Let's call this the big problem.
The next step is to turn the big problem into one or more short, simple challenges. Challenges usually start with

• "In what ways might I/we...?"
  
• "How might I/we...?"
  
• "What kinds of... might I/we...?"
  

Keep your challenges as simple as possible. Avoid:

• Restrictive criteria
  Restrictive criteria block open creativity. Leave them out of the challenge - but use those criteria later when it comes time to evaluate ideas.
  
• Combining two or more challenges in a single challenge.
  Combining two or more issues in a single challenge (such as "how might we earn more income and work less?") tends to confuse brainstormers and results in ideas which fail to solve either problem. Best to divide such challenges into individual challenges and brainstorm one at a time. Start with the most important challenge first.
  
• Ambiguous challenges
  A challenge such as "need money" isn't really clear and is likely to result in ideas that are not really clear. Make your challenges clear to everyone. And phrase them using the words above.
  

Once you have got your challenge, you will find it remarkably easy to generate ideas that solve it. But before you start brainstorming, there are a couple of things you should bear in mind..

• Generate ideas first. Nothing more. Only after you have finished generating ideas should you even think about reviewing them and decide which one(s) to implement.
  
• When generating ideas, whether alone or in a group, prohibit any criticism whatsoever. Moreover, it is essential that you make note of every idea no matter how silly, daft or impossible it may seem. The silliest ideas are sometimes the most creative and often highly inspirational.
  
• Do not stop at the first idea that comes to mind. The first good idea that comes to mind is seldom the most creative - largely because it is almost always the most obvious. Better to generate lots of ideas and then decide which ideas to choose.
  

Thus the secret to generating great ideas is to start with a great challenge. Then generate, generate, generate ideas.


Source:

How to Give a Killer Presentation

by Chris Anderson

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”
The story was inspiring and worthy of the broader audience that our TED conference could offer, but on the surface, Richard seemed an unlikely candidate to give a TED Talk. He was painfully shy. His English was halting. When he tried to describe his invention, the sentences tumbled out incoherently. And frankly, it was hard to imagine a preteenager standing on a stage in front of 1,400 people accustomed to hearing from polished speakers such as Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson, and Jill Bolte Taylor.
But Richard’s story was so compelling that we invited him to speak. In the months before the 2013 conference, we worked with him to frame his story—to find the right place to begin, and to develop a succinct and logical arc of events. On the back of his invention Richard had won a scholarship to one of Kenya’s best schools, and there he had the chance to practice the talk several times in front of a live audience. It was critical that he build his confidence to the point where his personality could shine through. When he finally gave his talk at TED, in Long Beach, you could tell he was nervous, but that only made him more engaging—people were hanging on his every word. The confidence was there, and every time Richard smiled, the audience melted. When he finished, the response was instantaneous: a sustained standing ovation.
Since the first TED conference, 30 years ago, speakers have run the gamut from political figures, musicians, and TV personalities who are completely at ease before a crowd to lesser-known academics, scientists, and writers—some of whom feel deeply uncomfortable giving presentations. Over the years, we’ve sought to develop a process for helping inexperienced presenters to frame, practice, and deliver talks that people enjoy watching. It typically begins six to nine months before the event, and involves cycles of devising (and revising) a script, repeated rehearsals, and plenty of fine-tuning. We’re continually tweaking our approach—because the art of public speaking is evolving in real time—but judging by public response, our basic regimen works well: Since we began putting TED Talks online, in 2006, they’ve been viewed more than one billion times.
On the basis of this experience, I’m convinced that giving a good talk is highly coachable. In a matter of hours, a speaker’s content and delivery can be transformed from muddled to mesmerizing. And while my team’s experience has focused on TED’s 18-minutes-or-shorter format, the lessons we’ve learned are surely useful to other presenters—whether it’s a CEO doing an IPO road show, a brand manager unveiling a new product, or a start-up pitching to VCs.
Frame Your Story There’s no way you can give a good talk unless you have something worth talking about. Conceptualizing and framing what you want to say is the most vital part of preparation.

Find the Perfect Mix of Data and Narrative

We all know that humans are wired to listen to stories, and metaphors abound for the narrative structures that work best to engage people. When I think about compelling presentations, I think about taking an audience on a journey. A successful talk is a little miracle—people see the world differently afterward.
If you frame the talk as a journey, the biggest decisions are figuring out where to start and where to end. To find the right place to start, consider what people in the audience already know about your subject—and how much they care about it. If you assume they have more knowledge or interest than they do, or if you start using jargon or get too technical, you’ll lose them. The most engaging speakers do a superb job of very quickly introducing the topic, explaining why they care so deeply about it, and convincing the audience members that they should, too.

The biggest problem I see in first drafts of presentations is that they try to cover too much ground. You can’t summarize an entire career in a single talk. If you try to cram in everything you know, you won’t have time to include key details, and your talk will disappear into abstract language that may make sense if your listeners are familiar with the subject matter but will be completely opaque if they’re new to it. You need specific examples to flesh out your ideas. So limit the scope of your talk to that which can be explained, and brought to life with examples, in the available time. Much of the early feedback we give aims to correct the impulse to sweep too broadly. Instead, go deeper. Give more detail. Don’t tell us about your entire field of study—tell us about your unique contribution.
Of course, it can be just as damaging to overexplain or painstakingly draw out the implications of a talk. And there the remedy is different: Remember that the people in the audience are intelligent. Let them figure some things out for themselves. Let them draw their own conclusions.
Many of the best talks have a narrative structure that loosely follows a detective story. The speaker starts out by presenting a problem and then describes the search for a solution. There’s an “aha” moment, and the audience’s perspective shifts in a meaningful way.
If a talk fails, it’s almost always because the speaker didn’t frame it correctly, misjudged the audience’s level of interest, or neglected to tell a story. Even if the topic is important, random pontification without narrative is always deeply unsatisfying. There’s no progression, and you don’t feel that you’re learning.
I was at an energy conference recently where two people—a city mayor and a former governor—gave back-to-back talks. The mayor’s talk was essentially a list of impressive projects his city had undertaken. It came off as boasting, like a report card or an advertisement for his reelection. It quickly got boring. When the governor spoke, she didn’t list achievements; instead, she shared an idea. Yes, she recounted anecdotes from her time in office, but the idea was central—and the stories explanatory or illustrative (and also funny). It was so much more interesting. The mayor’s underlying point seemed to be how great he was, while the governor’s message was “Here’s a compelling idea that would benefit us all.”
As a general rule, people are not very interested in talks about organizations or institutions (unless they’re members of them). Ideas and stories fascinate us; organizations bore us—they’re much harder to relate to. (Businesspeople especially take note: Don’t boast about your company; rather, tell us about the problem you’re solving.)
Plan Your Delivery Once you’ve got the framing down, it’s time to focus on your delivery. There are three main ways to deliver a talk. You can read it directly off a script or a teleprompter. You can develop a set of bullet points that map out what you’re going to say in each section rather than scripting the whole thing word for word. Or you can memorize your talk, which entails rehearsing it to the point where you internalize every word—verbatim.
My advice: Don’t read it, and don’t use a teleprompter. It’s usually just too distancing—people will know you’re reading. And as soon as they sense it, the way they receive your talk will shift. Suddenly your intimate connection evaporates, and everything feels a lot more formal. We generally outlaw reading approaches of any kind at TED, though we made an exception a few years ago for a man who insisted on using a monitor. We set up a screen at the back of the auditorium, in the hope that the audience wouldn’t notice it. At first he spoke naturally. But soon he stiffened up, and you could see this horrible sinking feeling pass through the audience as people realized, “Oh, no, he’s reading to us!” The words were great, but the talk got poor ratings.

Many of our best and most popular TED Talks have been memorized word for word. If you’re giving an important talk and you have the time to do this, it’s the best way to go. But don’t underestimate the work involved. One of our most memorable speakers was Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who had suffered a stroke. She talked about what she learned during the eight years it took her to recover. After crafting her story and undertaking many hours of solo practice, she rehearsed her talk dozens of times in front of an audience to be sure she had it down.
Obviously, not every presentation is worth that kind of investment of time. But if you do decide to memorize your talk, be aware that there’s a predictable arc to the learning curve. Most people go through what I call the “valley of awkwardness,” where they haven’t quite memorized the talk. If they give the talk while stuck in that valley, the audience will sense it. Their words will sound recited, or there will be painful moments where they stare into the middle distance, or cast their eyes upward, as they struggle to remember their lines. This creates distance between the speaker and the audience.
Getting past this point is simple, fortunately. It’s just a matter of rehearsing enough times that the flow of words becomes second nature. Then you can focus on delivering the talk with meaning and authenticity. Don’t worry—you’ll get there.
But if you don’t have time to learn a speech thoroughly and get past that awkward valley, don’t try. Go with bullet points on note cards. As long as you know what you want to say for each one, you’ll be fine. Focus on remembering the transitions from one bullet point to the next.
Also pay attention to your tone. Some speakers may want to come across as authoritative or wise or powerful or passionate, but it’s usually much better to just sound conversational. Don’t force it. Don’t orate. Just be you.
If a successful talk is a journey, make sure you don’t start to annoy your travel companions along the way. Some speakers project too much ego. They sound condescending or full of themselves, and the audience shuts down. Don’t let that happen.
Develop Stage Presence For inexperienced speakers, the physical act of being onstage can be the most difficult part of giving a presentation—but people tend to overestimate its importance. Getting the words, story, and substance right is a much bigger determinant of success or failure than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous. And when it comes to stage presence, a little coaching can go a long way.
The biggest mistake we see in early rehearsals is that people move their bodies too much. They sway from side to side, or shift their weight from one leg to the other. People do this naturally when they’re nervous, but it’s distracting and makes the speaker seem weak. Simply getting a person to keep his or her lower body motionless can dramatically improve stage presence. There are some people who are able to walk around a stage during a presentation, and that’s fine if it comes naturally. But the vast majority are better off standing still and relying on hand gestures for emphasis.

Perhaps the most important physical act onstage is making eye contact. Find five or six friendly-looking people in different parts of the audience and look them in the eye as you speak. Think of them as friends you haven’t seen in a year, whom you’re bringing up to date on your work. That eye contact is incredibly powerful, and it will do more than anything else to help your talk land. Even if you don’t have time to prepare fully and have to read from a script, looking up and making eye contact will make a huge difference.
Another big hurdle for inexperienced speakers is nervousness—both in advance of the talk and while they’re onstage. People deal with this in different ways. Many speakers stay out in the audience until the moment they go on; this can work well, because keeping your mind engaged in the earlier speakers can distract you and limit nervousness. Amy Cuddy, a Harvard Business School professor who studies how certain body poses can affect power, utilized one of the more unusual preparation techniques I’ve seen. She recommends that people spend time before a talk striding around, standing tall, and extending their bodies; these poses make you feel more powerful. It’s what she did before going onstage, and she delivered a phenomenal talk. But I think the single best advice is simply to breathe deeply before you go onstage. It works.
In general, people worry too much about nervousness. Nerves are not a disaster. The audience expects you to be nervous. It’s a natural body response that can actually improve your performance: It gives you energy to perform and keeps your mind sharp. Just keep breathing, and you’ll be fine.
Acknowledging nervousness can also create engagement. Showing your vulnerability, whether through nerves or tone of voice, is one of the most powerful ways to win over an audience, provided it is authentic. Susan Cain, who wrote a book about introverts and spoke at our 2012 conference, was terrified about giving her talk. You could feel her fragility onstage, and it created this dynamic where the audience was rooting for her—everybody wanted to hug her afterward. The fact that we knew she was fighting to keep herself up there made it beautiful, and it was the most popular talk that year.
Plan the Multimedia With so much technology at our disposal, it may feel almost mandatory to use, at a minimum, presentation slides. By now most people have heard the advice about PowerPoint: Keep it simple; don’t use a slide deck as a substitute for notes (by, say, listing the bullet points you’ll discuss—those are best put on note cards); and don’t repeat out loud words that are on the slide. Not only is reciting slides a variation of the teleprompter problem—“Oh, no, she’s reading to us, too!”—but information is interesting only once, and hearing and seeing the same words feels repetitive. That advice may seem universal by now, but go into any company and you’ll see presenters violating it every day.
Many of the best TED speakers don’t use slides at all, and many talks don’t require them. If you have photographs or illustrations that make the topic come alive, then yes, show them. If not, consider doing without, at least for some parts of the presentation. And if you’re going to use slides, it’s worth exploring alternatives to PowerPoint. For instance, TED has invested in the company Prezi, which makes presentation software that offers a camera’s-eye view of a two-dimensional landscape. Instead of a flat sequence of images, you can move around the landscape and zoom in to it if need be. Used properly, such techniques can dramatically boost the visual punch of a talk and enhance its meaning.
Artists, architects, photographers, and designers have the best opportunity to use visuals. Slides can help frame and pace a talk and help speakers avoid getting lost in jargon or overly intellectual language. (Art can be hard to talk about—better to experience it visually.) I’ve seen great presentations in which the artist or designer put slides on an automatic timer so that the image changed every 15 seconds. I’ve also seen presenters give a talk accompanied by video, speaking along to it. That can help sustain momentum. The industrial designer Ross Lovegrove’s highly visual TED Talk, for instance, used this technique to bring the audience along on a remarkable creative journey.
Another approach creative types might consider is to build silence into their talks, and just let the work speak for itself. The kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin used that approach to powerful effect. The idea is not to think “I’m giving a talk.” Instead, think “I want to give this audience a powerful experience of my work.” The single worst thing artists and architects can do is to retreat into abstract or conceptual language.

Video has obvious uses for many speakers. In a TED Talk about the intelligence of crows, for instance, the scientist showed a clip of a crow bending a hook to fish a piece of food out of a tube—essentially creating a tool. It illustrated his point far better than anything he could have said.
Used well, video can be very effective, but there are common mistakes that should be avoided. A clip needs to be short—if it’s more than 60 seconds, you risk losing people. Don’t use videos—particularly corporate ones—that sound self-promotional or like infomercials; people are conditioned to tune those out. Anything with a soundtrack can be dangerously off-putting. And whatever you do, don’t show a clip of yourself being interviewed on, say, CNN. I’ve seen speakers do this, and it’s a really bad idea—no one wants to go along with you on your ego trip. The people in your audience are already listening to you live; why would they want to simultaneously watch your talking-head clip on a screen?
Putting It Together We start helping speakers prepare their talks six months (or more) in advance so that they’ll have plenty of time to practice. We want people’s talks to be in final form at least a month before the event. The more practice they can do in the final weeks, the better off they’ll be. Ideally, they’ll practice the talk on their own and in front of an audience.
The tricky part about rehearsing a presentation in front of other people is that they will feel obligated to offer feedback and constructive criticism. Often the feedback from different people will vary or directly conflict. This can be confusing or even paralyzing, which is why it’s important to be choosy about the people you use as a test audience, and whom you invite to offer feedback. In general, the more experience a person has as a presenter, the better the criticism he or she can offer.
I learned many of these lessons myself in 2011. My colleague Bruno Giussani, who curates our TEDGlobal event, pointed out that although I’d worked at TED for nine years, served as the emcee at our conferences, and introduced many of the speakers, I’d never actually given a TED Talk myself. So he invited me to give one, and I accepted.
It was more stressful than I’d expected. Even though I spend time helping others frame their stories, framing my own in a way that felt compelling was difficult. I decided to memorize my presentation, which was about how web video powers global innovation, and that was really hard: Even though I was putting in a lot of hours, and getting sound advice from my colleagues, I definitely hit a point where I didn’t quite have it down and began to doubt I ever would. I really thought I might bomb. I was nervous right up until the moment I took the stage. But it ended up going fine. It’s definitely not one of the all-time great TED Talks, but it got a positive reaction—and I survived the stress of going through it.
Ultimately I learned firsthand what our speakers have been discovering for three decades: Presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance, not speaking style or multimedia pyrotechnics. It’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. If you have something to say, you can build a great talk. But if the central theme isn’t there, you’re better off not speaking. Decline the invitation. Go back to work, and wait until you have a compelling idea that’s really worth sharing.

10 Ways to Ruin a Presentation

The single most important thing to remember is that there is no one good way to do a talk. The most memorable talks offer something fresh, something no one has seen before. The worst ones are those that feel formulaic. So do not on any account try to emulate every piece of advice I’ve offered here. Take the bulk of it on board, sure. But make the talk your own. You know what’s distinctive about you and your idea. Play to your strengths and give a talk that is truly authentic to you.



Source:hbr.com

 

Great Moments in Creativity

by Mitchell Ditkoff
What is it that enables some people to get big creative breakthroughs while others only get big not-so-creative breakdowns - alternately blaming themselves, society, their boss, and their increasingly suspect astrological configurations? Is it that some people are "gifted"? Or are there other factors at work - factors that we (the people) have more control over than we might think?
While nobody can deny the fact that some people seem to be blessed with particular creative leanings (i.e. Mozart at 4), research has shown that anyone can increase their chances of coming up with new and original ideas - even have the much sought after AHA! experience - that is, IF they would only immerse themselves in the little understood process of creation. It's the old Thomas Edison thing about "discovery being 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration". Time and again, the literature bears this out: great creative breakthroughs usually happen only after intense periods of struggle - even madness. It is sustained and focused effort towards a specific goal - not luck, not wishing, not caffeine - that ultimately prepares the ground for great creative insights.
Of course, this kind of perseverance does not always generate immediate results, a fact that not only separates the wheat from the chaff, the innovators from the enervators, but also leads some people to conclude that it's just not in the cards for them. "Maybe I should have gone to medical school like my mother wanted", they wonder when the breakthrough is nowhere to be found. Alas, one forgets during their inevitable encounters with self-doubt, that the BIG AHA! is never far away. Indeed, it can happen at any time, any place, under any condition. Indeed, it's happened to more people than you could shake a therapist at - famous people, infamous people, unfamous people. Anyone and everyone. As long as they stay in the game…
RENE DESCARTES
Recognized as the "father of modern science," Rene Descartes offers a very interesting footnote to the history of "creative breakthrough." An exceptionally gifted student in 17th century France, young Rene dropped out of school at the age of 17 upon realizing that the only thing he had learned was that he was completely ignorant. Law school proved no better, nor did a brief stint in the military, or an aborted career as a gambler. Frustrated with the choices available to him, Descartes simply decided to retire at the ripe old age of 20. While his parents, teachers, and friends pleaded with him to change his mind, young Rene was adamant, and for the next two years did little else but stay in bed, read, think, dream, and write.
Curiously, one night in the second year of his retreat, Descartes had a dream in which the essence of what we now know as the "scientific method" was revealed to him. In time, his discovery was shared with the scientific community and Western science had a new hero. Ah, but the paradox of it all! While scientists far and wide heralded Descartes for his contribution to Western, rational science, no one (in their right mind) would acknowledge that the root of Descartes' discovery (and indeed, the root of what most scientists today base their knowledge on) came to him in a dream - a non-rational, non-linear, altered state of consciousness in the mind of a total dropout!
Descartes story is not at all uncommon. The truth, the breakthrough, the AHA! came to him only after years of intense conscious effort. Like ripe fruit, the answer made its appearance at the right time - a time when he wasn't trying, but had let himself be receptive to the promptings of his own subconscious mind.
ELIAS HOWE
Elias Howe had struggled for years in his attempt to invent a lockstitch sewing machine. His early designs, though inspired, were flawed. Indeed, the needle he designed had a hole in the middle of the shank, which simply didn't work. Then, one night, depressed at how slowly things were going, Howe dreamed he was captured by a bunch of savages who took him prisoner before the King. "Elias Howe," screamed the monarch, "I command you upon the pain of death to finish this machine at once!" Try as he might, however, Howe still could not find the solution. The King, making good on his word, immediately ordered his troops to take Howe to the place of "execution" (dream pun intended), As Howe was being led away, he looked up and noticed that the spears the savages were carrying had eye-shaped holes near the top! Voila! In a flash, Howe awoke, jumped out of bed, and spent the rest of the night whittling a model of the new, improved needle - the design breakthrough that quickly brought his experiments to a successful conclusion.
RICHARD WAGNER
At the age of 40, Richard Wagner was going through a serious mid-life crisis. His artistic career was stalled, his marriage was falling apart, and his finances were in shambles. Desperate, he decided to travel, hoping to find some inspiration. Traveling, however, only tired him. Then, one morning, just at the moment when he finally gave up on his frantic effort to invoke his muse, Wagner heard a musical theme in a dream - one that was about to change his life and the history of music.
Explained Wagner, "After a night spent in fever and sleeplessness, I forced myself to take a long walk through the country. It looked dreary and desolate. Upon my return, I lay down on a hard couch. Sleep would not come, but I sank into a kind of somnambulance, in which I suddenly felt as though I were sinking in swiftly flowing water. The rushing noise formed itself into a musical sound, the chord of E flat major, whence developed melodic passages of increasing motion. I awoke in sudden terror, recognizing that the orchestral prelude to Das Rheingold, which must have lain long latent within me, had at last been revealed to me. I decided to return to Zurich at once and begin the composition of my great poem."
MOZART
A prodigy? Yes. Gifted? Yes. Unusually receptive? Yes. But also very tuned in to the state of mind that preceded great creative breakthroughs: Explained Mozart, "When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them. Those pleasures that please me, I retain in memory, and am accustomed... to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it....agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, and to t he peculiarities of the various instruments. All this fires my soul, and provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them.....all at once. What a delight I cannot tell! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing lively dream...."
RUDYARD KIPLING
Many people who experience supernormal moments of great creativity report a willingness to let themselves be open to the non-logical, non-linear, and unexplainable promptings of an inner voice. Maybe you call it a "hunch" or "intuition," but whatever you call it, know that paying attention to it is often the key to manifesting your vision or idea. Rudyard Kipling, the English writer, was very much in touch with this faculty. "Most men," wrote Kipling, "keep their personal Daemon (guardian spirit) under an alias which varies with their literary or scientific attainments. Mine came to me early when I sat bewildered among other notions. 'Take me and no other,' it said. I obeyed and was rewarded. After that, I learned to lean upon him and recognize the sign of his approach. If ever I held back anything of myself (even though I had to throw it out afterwards), I paid for it by missing what I knew the tale lacked.....I took good care to walk delicately, lest my Daemon should withdraw. I know that he did not, because when my books were finished they said so themselves with almost the water-hammer click of a tap turned off........'Note here.' When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey...."
KEKULE
It is not only writers and composers that have creative breakthroughs. Molecular scientists do, too. Notes the Flemish scientist, Kekule: "One fine evening I was returning by the last bus through the deserted streets of the metropolis, which are at other times so full of life. I fell into a reverie, and lo! the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. Whenever those diminutive beings had appeared to me before, they had always been in motion, but I had never been able to discern the nature of their motion. Now, however, I saw how frequently, how smaller atoms united to form a pair; how a larger one embraced two smaller ones; how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller, while the whole kept whirring in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain....I spent part of the night putting on paper at least a sketch of these dream forms."
Then, years later, the big illumination: "I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of this kind, could now distinguish larger structures....long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting and snakelike motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes! As if by a flash of lightening I awoke. Let us learn to dream, gentlemen."
Kekule had made a most remarkable discovery - that benzene is a cyclic or ring structure and the carbon chain at the molecular core of the compound does indeed form a chain that "swallows its own tail".
TCHAIKOVSKY
OK, all you aspiring creators, how about a tip from the man who composed the Nutcracker Suite? "Generally, the germ of a future composition comes suddenly and unexpectedly...It takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity, shoots up through the earth, puts forth branches and leaves, and finally blossoms....I forget everything and behave like a mad man. Everything within me starts pulsing and quivering. Hardly have I begun the sketch, before one thought follows another. In the midst of this magic process, it frequently happens that some external interruption awakes me from my somnabulistic state....Dreadful indeed are such interruptions....They break the thread of the inspiration."

WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS IN THE WAY OF YOU HAVING AN AHA?
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO ATTRACT AN AHA! EXPERIENCE?
WHAT RECENT AHA OF YOURS DO YOU NEED TO ACT ON? 

 

 

Source:http://www.ideachampions.com

7 Great Tips To Boost Your Creativity

Creativity is the most important tool for every designer; technology can’t replace it and as a personal opinion it won’t replace it until the end of days. I saw a lot of great works done in earlier version of Photoshop which still impress the users of the latest version of this program (CS5,unfortunately I am not a user of this “wow” version).
Here I present a list of some tips to increase your creativity; these work for me and I noticed from various forums and blogs of the world-wide designers that these tips also work for them.
Please write your impressions in a comment so that I discover what the best tips are, and maybe I will republish this article as being better informed than now.
Do not worry, these tips work for 90% of all people, only few of us are special and have different opinions. I hope to aid you in your process of creation and let me know how much I helped you.

1. Usually, creativity comes after many hours of work.

Probably, all my articles about freelancing on the Internet seem to contain the same messages, only work improves your skills.
In design as well as in science there is no wonder, all what matter is the number of hours of work and how passionate you are in making your projects.
The difference between a very creative designer and one that suffer a lack of it in accomplishing a task is, most of the time the fact that the first one worked on a previous similar project. In conclusion…creativity likes experience & work.

2. When you are thinking about a concept it means that you are working

In my career as a freelancer it happens very often that it can take up to several minutes to imagine a sketch of a design, staying as focused as possible, sometimes even with my eyes closed. My brother told me once that a better place to boost my creativity in this way is… a bed.
I on the other hand believe that it is much better to stay quite some time (or to lose time how my brother likes to say) concentrated on creating an initial concept than hurrying up to draw as many sketches as you can, but without them being interesting. I really believe this: when somebody is thinking on how to create something shows a hard work not a pretext for lazy people.
The entire world is governed by the law of Murphy and not by the physics (good for Einstein that can’t read this article!) and of course when you didn’t expect the solution, it will hit you. A general rule that doesn’t sound too professional, but is indeed very true: the best concept comes after you have chosen one as the best one.

3. Be very relaxed when you are working

I know that it is almost impossible to be calm when you need some whole days to fulfill your schedule for today (sincerely not all the time I respect this tip).
Anyway my effective power is superior when I am very unstrained and I listen to my favorite music (some psychologist consider that the symphonic music is better, but I believe it is more important to like what you are listening to, please let me know your opinion).

4. Creativity increases from multiple opinions

I learned a lot by demanding the opinions of all my friends regarding my works, even if they have experience with design or not. Feedback helps you a lot, because you can see the drawing from multiple perspectives.
The best example is a recent concept of a logo designed by me for a friend: it wasn’t a very serious task…in fact it was an avatar for the Yahoo Messenger. I initially, in the picture bellow, imagined 2”D” and from this sketch I start adding color, making some small corrections and so on.
It was a big surprise when he told me that he sees it as being 2”P” in the image; obviously both of us are right, but I should have seen the different aspects as the creator of the logo. From this experience I learned that paying attention to different opinions can boost the creativity, because you have access to multiple points of view.

5. Take breaks

If you are very tired and bored, yet still stay in front of your PC then this is a loss of time (I hate this situation). A break sounds as an excuse, but you should organize your schedule very well and you must keep in mind that having a break is a ‘must’ in boosting your efficiency, not something that is optional.
It is scientific demonstrated that small pauses are very good in the process of creation (these help the brain to “respire”, even the best processor can’t work with 100% of its capability without some breaks).

6. Read blogs and study portfolios as much as you can

Logo that can be seen as 2”D”s, but also 2”P”s.
I see a very clear connection between information and creativity. A good searcher on Internet surely will find good sources for inspiration and this is the fuel for creativity.
Nobody can only work; a pause can be a very good solution to escape from a bad state. I usually, after approximately two hours of continuum work, spend around half an hour looking at the new post on various blogs of the great designers.

7. Pay attention to the psychologist pieces of advice

Psychology studies the way of improving creativity, and of course this science can give you better advices than me. A very important piece of advice that really has a positive effect on me is to change the design of my office; this helps me a lot to fight against boredom.
I can’t afford to change every day the furniture in my study room around, but small changes can be easily made as a new keyboard, a very nice wireless mouse, wallpaper of the PC (some operating systems permit to change the desktop wallpaper at every minute-I have multiple collection of impressive backgrounds that give me a good disposition every time).
Finally, I want to repeat that everything depends on your own way of working and thinking; all my advices are based on the opinion of the majority of the designers.


Source: http://celestra.ca