Category: Creativity

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Finding my place

photoIt wasn’t until I had a toddler that I realised how important ‘placement’ was in my creative internal vortex.

I place things on my desk with finesse, I drop things on my bookshelf with purpose, to a shallow glance it looks a little messy, it looks a little crazy, but to my internal Dewey Decibel system it is just right.

My son has the most beautiful nature, but he is a fiddler. Everything he touches is fiddled with. I am sure he is bursting with innovation because he finds anything he can to feel, to explore and to replace in his own way.

Two weeks ago I turned on the washing machine to hear a regular knock, that isn’t a part of its usual rhythm and after digging the water logged inhabitants, I found my brand new smart televisions water logged remote control.

It wasn’t until max started to press my placement control buttons that I realised how important place was in my creative routine.

I rearrange my desk.

I play with my notes on my side table.

I light candles.

I make coffee.

I muse with placement until my idea is ready to be birthed.

How about you?

Do you feel out of place?

Is finding a place and creating a place, an important part of your creative expression.

booksThis new season for me has taken so long to settle, because of this one marker. Place.

I didn’t realise how much team, how much the people I collaborated with, the location of my workspace, the routines, the deeply enriched rituals, how much they enabled my creativity and innovation through place.

Slowly I am finding my new place.

And I kinda like it.

How about you?

Do you need to find your place?

Do you need to find your fit?

Explore this today.

Amanda

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getting stuff done

This week I have had a few conversations with creatives about task management and effective planning. (I have probably lost half of you already)

Most people I know (who are overtly creative) struggle with time management, especially those who are creative entrepreneurs who work full time or mummy 24/7.

It is so funny, in this season when people ask me what I do, I tell them ‘I’m a stay at home mum and more?’. It is always said with a smirk and a smile.

The reality is, I have all the time in the world but it is broken into small segments. Between toilet training, climbing practice, toy smashing and food championship throwing, I am running a business, a key leader in a women’s network, on the board of a creative enterprise, always writing a new book in my mind, big sister, speaker, collaborator, husband cheerleader, head chef and consultant in creativity.

I need tools for time management. I mostly use my emails to set my task lists but as my consulting business grows and more networks are created, this is not working for my new season.

I recently read an article about a time management technique called ‘POMODORO’. It was designed in the 1980’s by a man called Francesco Cirillo. You can read more about this technique here: Pomodoro Technique

It is actually quite simple and I have found it lately really effective.

Here is my modern mummy take on it:

1) Turn your phone onto silent or flight mode

2) write a list of what needs to be accomplished: tool one

3) Set your timer 25 mins (a kitchen timer, your iPhone or download an pomodoro app)

4) Close down all social media applications or windows or apps.

5) Close down your email. (mum’s put your children to bed, close the door and turn your music up.)

6) Start your timer and start task one.

7) After 25 mins, have a 5 min break. Go get a coffee, a glass of water, chat to a friend, flick onto a website/ social media something for 5 MINS ONLY!!!

8) Go to task two. Start 25 min timer again.

9) repeat 7 & 8 two more times.

The Pomodoro Technique from Pomodoro Master on Vimeo.

You will be so surprised at how much you can get done in two hours. If you work in an office setting. Block out two hours in your diary and do this process and you will be astounded at how fresh your work space will be and what you will achieve.

I have made a downloadable task managment sheet here: get stuff done

Screen Shot 2013-08-25 at 11.13.01 AM

This will also help you define what you need to do in a couple of hours.

Honestly I spend so much time mucking around, to be more effective and to bring my best to the opportunities in front of me is such a good thing.

Hope this helps.

Comment below on how you go here.

Till we meet again

Amanda

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Beauty in brokenness

As a creative soul I sometimes struggle with the emotional toll producing creative endeavors have on me personally.

Listening to someone’s story, writing out of a deep place, designing something new or placing my thoughts out in the public sphere, reticent at the potential criticism.

Creativity can be tiring.

After a crazy busy month, I found myself fading at the beginning of this week, verging on the edge of exhaustion.

I found my frustration growing, I found my need for space looming and I realized actually the problem was that I was just very tired.

Back from Sydney I accepted another short term consulting contract, I spoke morning and evening this last weekend at a church and my produce level was exceeding my inspirational input one.

In the midst of my potential melt down on Monday however, I reflected with my husband about what helps me restore and recover in the midst of emptiness.

I realized in the past my recovery techniques have not always been healthy. Coffee, chocolate, rewards, arranging and controlling things, producing more creative items.

We together unpacked the good, the bad and the ugly of the breakdown and rebuilt the potential and beauty there.

I am grateful that in this season of my life I have time to unpack my ugly and allow it to sit and stare back at me.

In my former life I would have rushed from one event to another and allowed the frustration to fester.

There is beauty in the breakdown, yet we need to take time to acknowledge the emotions and place them in their right order accordingly.

Beauty in the breakdown.

I quite like that song.

Imagine if we let our ugly breathe and find its true place.

The world would be that much lighter.

Thinking

A

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SPARC inspired

erwinSquareTwitterI have just come back to earth after an amazing weekend spent with creative people from all over Australia. There were many themes throughout the conference but the most resounding one was ‘A life of authenticity’.

I believe everyone is creative. It is just how we allow that creativity to pervade every part of our lives that is the problem.

The guest speaker for the conference was Erwin Mc Manus who is a regular speaker at TED conferences.

He spoke openly and honestly about his creative pursuits, the future and his failures. To hear someone who we perceive as being so successful talk about all the things he had failed in, was so refreshing.

Here is a highlights video of our conference:

http://vimeo.com/user10306509/review/72184724/f6e7a9d58b

If you would like to come with me next year, blind registrations are open here: http://www.sparc.org.au/2014-registration/

Here is a message from a few years ago from Erwin Mc Manus for those who have never heard him before.

Exciting Days

Amanda

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Gratitude

Somedays I am overwhelmed with perspective about how much is available to us in this day and age.

I was flicking through a website that profiled photos from history and this one stopped me in my tracks.

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This photo was taken after a bookstore was bombed in war in 1940.

Perspective.

I was texting a friend today who was upset about something that had happened in her life and quickly I reminded her how truly blessed she is.

Perspective.

Books for us maybe so background, but for those who have no access to information they are a privilege.

What annoys us, others would give anything to have.

Last night I watched a program about a woman who went to extreme lengths to fall pregnant, yet others scream crazily at their kids not realising others would do anything just to hold one.

Perspective.

Sometimes it’s a photo, sometimes it’s a conversation, sometimes it’s a revelation.

We all need perspective sometimes.

That problem your facing may be a dream unrealized for someone else.

It’s all determined how we look at it.

A