Articles from metaphor
The Creative's Mindset
Deciding to make creativity a core pillar of your life changes your relationship to the world around you. It changes how you prioritize and spend your time and (perhaps most importantly) your long-term relationship to your creative work. A life centered around creativity requires the adoption and cultivation of what I call the creative’s mindset.
Drops in the Bucket: Four Ideas on How to Make Progress on Your Creative Projects
Creativity is choice: the result of prioritizing your creative work over the other areas of your life making demands on your time and energy. Easier said than done in some circumstances… The ideas in this article will help you reprioritize your task list, regain control of your time, and make steady progress on your creative projects.
Your One Precious Creative Life
No matter how engaged we are in our creative work, occasionally we find ourselves asking “Why am I doing this?” This question comes up regardless of how much recognition we’re getting for our work. It’s natural and necessary to wonder what you’re doing with your one precious life.
Random Events and Other Useful Distractions
We are living in the “age of distraction,” a phrase so pervasive a Google search for it yields nearly 600,000 results. A search for its antidote, “focus mode,” yields over 6.2 million results. People are desperate for relief from endless distraction. But while distractions are a problem, the elevation and pursuit of the antidote, of “focus mode,” has a shadow side. Our obsession with focusing closes us off from a vital source of creativity: useful distractions.
Give Your Creativity a Clutter Boost
My office is a mess—the most cluttered and disorganized it’s been in years. Why? Because my mind has been elsewhere. The mess in my office isn’t the residue of neglect, it’s a wayfinding system. But the clutter around me may also serve another purpose, it may be fueling my creativity.
Your Creativity is Your Passport
Everyone who earns a degree in the arts—creative or applied—is really graduating with a double major: one that honors their skills in their chosen area of creative expression and a second that recognizes their achievement in mastering a set of creative-thinking and problem-solving skills.
The Inner Life of the Inner Critic
We’re all familiar with the inner critic: the voice inside your head that delights in belittling, criticizing, and judging you. This article is focused on reconnecting with the protective impulse the inner critic is expressing, and using that impulse as a catalyst for developing your creativity.