Comments on: applying “creativity” to your professional life etc.

By: lex

lex — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:25:38 +0000

Wow — so many good bits and bobs of advice, I’m going to have to juggle the best! As a little Gen Y-er still finding her way in a stifling work atmosphere, I’m figuring out the next step to take before ‘jumping ship’. It’s going to be risk-taking, but of the calculated variety.
For the moment, I think that unleashing the creativity in an uncreative environment will probably keep interest levels up, and I’m full of ideas for that. And in the meantime it seems like I’ve lit upon a great source of inspiration and advice.

By: funtime42

funtime42 — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:45:33 +0000

I learned at an early stage of life that many people have little or no love for their work — I didn’t understand how anyone could work at a job they hated until I was stuck in one by circumstances over which I had little control (ex-husband, bill collectors, etc). I realized I could spend the rest of my life in a secure but hated job, or I could take the biggest gamble of my life. Quit the job, borrowed every dime from every student loan I could swing, and got my Masters, which finally gave me a piece of paper that said I knew what I knew.
I got a new career that pays much more than I expected, gives me the opportunity to play with new technology every day, and provides me with enough free time and disposable income to do what I really love in my off-hours.
No big lesson here, I suppose, except that if you can’t find someone who will pay you for your creativity, find a job that won’t drive you insane so you have the spirit to create when you get home.

By: Johan M

Johan M — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:19:13 +0000

OBSERVE MORE,LISTEN… TALK LESS. Professional environments always push you to talk, complaint,talk,give your point of view, talk, talk and talk. If you are the “expert” you should talk! That’s a lie!
If you want to apply creativity to your professional life, spend more time observing behaviors, people, machines, places…and listening to others, “listening” to processes, to nature, to stuff.
Get up of your chair! Stand up and start looking for something new (I should say, something you haven’t noticed before!)

By: JedB

JedB — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:18:27 +0000

Not sure about doing the 25% extra hours on creative things at work… I try and build 25% creativity into everything I am doing at work now and still go home when I am ready

By: candace

candace — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:10:36 +0000

I dig that you came right out and said to work 25% more. Enthusiasm is the twin of creativity, imho, and people who love what they do don’t punch out at 5

By: Tim Clague

Tim Clague — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:02:12 +0000

What I took away from the ‘How to be Creative’ pdf was the idea that you should put your creativity into everything you do. Too many people hold back. They are waiting for something worthy of their creativity to unlease it. A little like some actors who hold back their best acting for the close up. But of course you have to earn that close up in life.
Anyway — it worked for me. This change in attitude also changed my perspective, or possibly it was the other way around — it doesn’t matter. Either way I feel much more confident in my creativity and my role as a creative person and my bank balance feels healthier also.

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:55:17 +0000

One more: look under weird rocks.
Creativity is stimulated by variety. Get used to looking in places you’d never, ever look for stimulation. If you love country music, listen to Brahms. If you only read 19th century novels, pick up a NASCAR magazine. If you only play video games, watch long films. If you keep fishing in the same spots, don’t be surprised by pulling up the same fish.

By: Hrishi Mittal

Hrishi Mittal — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:03:03 +0000

One more addition to the list:
age(?)ism
]out-of-the-box[
Gen Y (seriously, who thought of that?)

By: jill

jill — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:36:35 +0000

To your friend, from my experience: If a workplace feels wrong (read un’creative’) it will stay wrong. It is better to jump ship and find a company that suits your own particular brand of ‘creative’..or create one.
The least creative job I had was ostensibly the most creative — at a marketing agency. The most creative? At a software company working with ‘geeks’. Maybe it suits my microbrand of ‘creative’ better.

By: Hrishi Mittal

Hrishi Mittal — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:36:14 +0000

Hugh, thanks for expanding on your best post ever (HTBC).
#1 is great. I’ve been trying it lately and it works. john, for me this is actually an awesome way to find ways to love what I’m doing.
#2 is so reassuring I can’t help you enough for it Hugh. Same with #4.
#6 has been on my mind ever since I first read HTBC. It’s simple and it rocks.
#7 I’ve only begun to see what this means and why it’s important. It’s taken me a long time to develop a ‘long time’ vision. When I read ‘dying young is over-rated’ it really rang a bell inside. I had used it as an excuse for the longest time. No more.
Looking forward to more enlightening expansion.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:55:00 +0000

“The goal isn’t always to make your job something you love, but to find ways to love what you’re doing.“
John, that is a most excellent point. Thanks for that.

By: mildred township

mildred township — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:54:16 +0000

8. When you are slapping a client in the face with a cod, and the client says, “you should write FISH on that thing,” do so and then triple your fee.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:52:36 +0000

As a member of Gen Y (is it a members only club?) I’d wholeheartedly agree with “young friend’s” steer. I would just clarify whether you mean “professional” or “corporate” — for me the two aren’t the same.
Re the advice back, I think point 3 deserves a lot more thought. I absolutely agree, but as you say it’s pretty hard to see opportunities for creativity sometimes, especially if you have decided to join the *corportate* hordes of a behemoth technology/banking company, as opposed to, say, a *professional* media agency.
I think point 3 is actually why I started my (very!) nascent blog…

By: Mark McGuinness

Mark McGuinness — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:31:39 +0000

I read a great line by Derek Walcott the other day:
’be grateful that each craft stays hard to do’
He’s writing that as a poet and painter in his seventies, having won the Nobel Prize, achieved worldwide fame etc. And it’s still difficult for him to write or paint — and that’s the pleasure of it, what keeps it fresh, what makes it worthwhile.
Or as Noel Coward put it, for creative types, ‘work is more fun than fun’.

By: Eliza Amos

Eliza Amos — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:42:17 +0000

Wow. You make so many LISTS .…
This is a good one–except that I disagree COMPLETELY about #2. If a person has no life, their “creative” work is likely to lack a certain depth. No life means no subject matter, no fuel for the ol’ artistic fire.
Balance. It’s alllll about balance.