A common struggle that myself, my colleagues, and my clients have is to find new ways of being creative on continuous and daily basis. This struggle lies in the reality that we have busier schedules and more channels of distraction vying for our attention on a continual basis.
The key to finding new ways of being creative lies in streamlining our daily routines and choosing to ignore or filter various distractions. Leaving us with the time and space to focus on new and creative ideas. As we continue to build the information economy we need to understand that our creative drive is going to be what sets us apart in the marketplace. A chef who video blogs their specials each day is showing us that they love food. A lawyer who give us analysis of local events is showing their ability to communicate clearly. A marketer who talks about their techniques is going to get their foot in the door without having to pitch anything.
The more we understand that creativity is what makes us unique the more we will enjoy what we do for a living. In this article I want to review some ideas for finding the space and getting to our creative side by reviewing daily routines and various distractions.
Every day we wake up and we begin some sort of routine. Whether it’s immediately hopping in the shower, getting coffee going, starting breakfast, checking e-mail, etc. You name it and there’s any number of routines that we begin as soon as we wake up. For the rest of the day we fall into some sort of routine. We go to our job, we go to lunch, we go out after work, we go to dinner, we read a book, we watch TV, and we go to bed. Inside of this entire routine and process there are gaps where we can either choose to stick within the routine or find a space to be creative and get out of the routine.
Personally I find that my creativity levels are highest in the morning, unfortunately I am not a morning person. One thing that I have found is that I need to set aside time in the morning to focus on writing an article like this one before getting into the daily routine. I do find that doing some sort of exercise such as yoga or running or riding my bike before the creative process is very helpful.
For some people the morning might not be a good time. If you have children or have an early job you’re not going to be able to assign time in the morning for this. Where else can you be looking? At lunch hour maybe you eat quicker at the beginning and then you have some time after eating where you can sit and you work on your writing. Same thing goes in the evening: rather than reading that book or watching TV instead you take the time to do some writing.
We live in the age of cable TV, online video streaming, billions of websites, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the iPad to name a few. Our attention has never been more easily distracted before and consequently our ability to find time to focus on creative endeavors has become that much more difficult. As a society we have a large emphasis on what’s on TV what happened on the show last night or did you see what the latest crazy celebrity did. To put it bluntly this is SADD and acceptance is the first step to recovery.
My suggestion would be to take a notebook and track through your day when you are finding yourself distracted.
All of these are distractions and sideshows that are keeping you from focusing on becoming creative. Take a week of tracking down these activities and see where are the different places that you’re allowing your attention to be drawn and how much time you’re spending with each one. The results will shock you. The amount of time that you are spending on nonproductive activities is going to be higher than you probably suspected.
Once you’ve found these gaps in your daily routine and in your SADD where you can plug in your creative endeavors you need to focus on what you want to be creative about. Just as our attention is easily diverted by any number of distractions so can our creative focus.. Personally I love shiny things. Meaning I enjoy philosophizing about everything and anything under the sun and especially if it has nothing to do with what my business. By looking at my creative time with a specific intent i will be able to create articles and videos that apply to my business. This in turn will allow customers to see the variety of things I bring to the table and give me a call.
Look at your business and create a list of what sets your company apart from the competition. If you have a hard time with this then look at your competition and see what they do well and not so well. Create a list of those things and then how you might do them better or different. Then use those lists to create content that will capture your customers attention and get them to call you.
You have more time than you think to be creative. Find the time and then focus on what you want to be creative about. If there isnt an immediate business application thats okay too. The key is to build your confidence in your creative capabilities and see where it takes you.
Another GA topic I was recently introduced to is Alerts. In GA you can create Alerts to shoot you an email when various things happen on your website. Things like: surge in traffic, drop in traffic, drop in Google traffic, etc. This allows you to stay focused on new things while having a nice safety net in place in case things go wrong. A great article from Rebecca Lehmann on SEOMoz last Month gives you 7 excellent alerts and super easy links to add them to your GA account with.
How about you? Do you have any special secrets that everyone else should be using for Google Analytics?
GigPress is a powerful WordPress plugin designed for musicians and other performers. Manage all of your upcoming and past performances right from within the WordPress admin, and display them on your site using simple shortcodes, PHP template tags, or the GigPress widget on your WordPress-powered website.
Yes dear hearts, fear is what it boils down to. From my experience fear of telling the world hello and establishing yourself comes down to two main points: 1) we fear sounding dumb or 2) we fear letting people know when we started might influence their opinion of us.
In business we want to be on our A game all the time, especially with clients. Hey they aren’t paying you because of your car or haircut, they pay you because you are the best at what you do. If we sound dumb or ignorant of something in our profession then the client looses trust, right? Maybe.
Expertise is one thing that the client pays you for but the main reason they pay you for your services is because they trust you. They trust that the loan you write them, or the trial you are arguing, or the taxes you prepare are either getting done or you are talking with them to get it done.
You can’t know everything about your client without asking them questions right? Well it works the same way with business knowledge. Showing a lack of knowledge doesn’t mean you are dumb, it means you are honest with what you do know and are willing to learn more. Be honest with your clients and they will pay you forever.
Everyone and everything has to start at one time or another. This is inevitable. Hiding this fact only leaves a gap for clients to fill with their own answers. Just like you don’t want to let your client tell you how to do your job you also don’t want them writing your story.
What if they see I haven’t been in business for very long? If a client is choosing their vendors strictly based on how long you have been in business you might not want them for a client. Microsoft has been around longer than Google, but I use Google over Bing because it delivers results. If your client isn’t focused on results you might want to be ready for them to fall behind on payments.
You have to start somewhere, take the leap, make your mark, and start winning! (Yes I like to make jokes.)