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Name of author Rick Baker, P.Eng.

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Maximizing your creative energy - #1

by Rick Baker
On Sep 22, 2010
Jim Estill’s August 26th blog caught my attention. Thank you, Jim, for the opportunity to relay your thoughts about ‘creative energy’.
 
Here’s what Jim wrote on August 26th…
 
“In my experience, there are limits to creative energy. Sometimes in a very short period of time I can prepare a great speech, powerpoint or article. Other times, it takes me five times as long to produce quality material (or it never gets produced).
 
And what I have found is these creative periods tend to be short. Of course my goal is to make them more and longer.
 
Some tricks I try are:
  1. The old timer trick. Set my Blackberry timer for 25 minutes. And just do it. 25 minutes is short enough that I can do it any time.
  2. Stimulation. I find reading often acts as a stimulus. I take notes while I read.
  3. Rest. Obvious but I am more creative if I am rested.
  4. Health. I am more creative if I am healthy.
  5. Exercise. A good run or weight lifting session can inspire.
  6. Setting goals. I always work better with goals. Creative goals work for me.”
 
***
 
As I read Jim’s blog, I thought about 3 things:
  1. How we can be more creative…
    • About the quality: being able to do work that scores high on the ‘creativity scale’.
    • About the quantity: being able to produce a larger amount of creative or innovative work.
  2. How we can be creative when we want to be creative…
    • About the timing: being able to do creative work when we want to do it.
  3. The definition of creativity. In this note, when I write ‘creative energy’ I mean whatever it is [inside us] that provides us the ability to do innovative or creative business work.
    • About understanding how the human brain works when it performs innovative and creative work.
In this blog-series – Maximizing your creative energy – I will write about all 3 of these topics.
 
To finish off this first blog in the series, I will share a few things I do to bolster my ‘creative energy’. At first reading the set of things may appear strange or disconnected…or worse. Hopefully, after I have finished the blog-series the things will make much more sense.
 
Things I do to bolster my ‘creative energy’…
  • Sometimes I intentionally procrastinate to force a tight deadline
  • I keep a file on my Blackberry to record "Did you ever wonder..." things
  • Sometimes I brush my hair with my left hand [being right-handed…that explains why my hair looks messy]
  • I listen to volumes of business and personal-development audio CDs
  • Sometimes I write poems, many of them designed for humour and song lyrics
Footnotes:
Link to Jim Estill’s website: CEO Blog – Time Leadership  www.jimestill.com
Link to an Innovation & Creativity blog.

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Sales Tweet #48

by Rick Baker
On Sep 22, 2010
Sales Tweet #48 Pull out the stops for your next trade show. Spend one hour preparing for each hour of attendance.
 
The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet
While visiting some 300 or so businesses during the last 2 years, I have been fortunate enough to see some absolutely amazing work done in preparation for trade shows. Trade show participation has been treated like a project and given a full project-management effort...including: trade show floor plan with colour coded pins and coloured connecting strings, pre-set meetings under coordinated timetables, competitive analyses, attendee lists, video shoots with Clients, special touches added to break-out meeting rooms, etc. Time spent planning for trade shows pays off in multiples.

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Sales | Thought Tweets

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