May29
In the Meme Time: Odd Moments
Tag Archives: Productivity
Apr24
Creative Juice #187
Don’t spend one more day not knowing about these things:
- Taking some of the mystery (and fear) out of hardanger.
- Did you know Salvador Dali did illustrations for Don Quixote?
- Am I the only person not housecleaning during the quarantine?
- This is a NaPoWriMo poem. The prompt was effusive compliments.
- Everything you ever wanted to know about ouzo.
- Noticed while running.
- Beautiful free stained glass quilt patterns.
- How poetry grows on you.
- Your social media practices can have unintended consequences.
- The amazing ceramic fashions of Li Xiaofeng.
- In a random related story, the art of the “plate thief.”
- How to defeat distraction.
Jan31
Creative Juice #175
For your weekend reading pleasure. Lose yourself for an hour in these great articles.
- Ice spinning like an LP in a river.
- Do you want to do watercolor, but have no idea what to paint?
- What do you see in the clouds?
- Valentine’s Day will be here before we know it. How do you treat the person you love?
- Beautiful quilts from the Road to California.
- I love taking virtual strolls with this Jersey City artist.
- Wonderful travel sketches.
- Inspired Zentangles.
- Do you know who Judith Leyster was? I didn’t. She was one of the Dutch master painters.
- I love this illustrator’s work!
- The work ethic of highly creative people.
- Maybe it’s not so smart to try to increase your productivity.
Oct18
Creative Juice #160
A feast for the eyes, a banquet for the heart.
- An amateur artist goes pro.
- Knit-look sculptures made from ceramic circles.
- Traveling by train in Europe.
- Green ideas.
- Yes, life is full of disappointments.
- Ready for some fall quilting?
- Gorgeous photos of mama and baby birds.
- Do you have these five qualities of the creative?
- Would you like to be more productive?
- Pablo Picasso was an amazing artist and a crappy human being.
- Now I want to go to Morocco.
- What Mary Oliver said about interruptions.
Jan4
Creative Juice #122
4, 6, and 7 are especially beneficial for the new year.
- I’ve read a bunch of these memoirs and found a few to add to my TBR pile.
- Natural fashion.
- For all the writers. Especially the freelancers. Do you deserve a reward today?
- How to be a good father.
- I love The Frugal Crafter! Here’s an upcycling project she recently posted. I love the video as well as the instructions.
- Ways to put failures and setbacks into perspective. (Warning: the F-word is used liberally in this article.)
- Using the Da Vinci Schedule to increase your productivity and prevent burnout.
- I think my next quilt project for myself should be a red-and-white Christmas quilt. Some of these done up in Christmas fabrics would work very nicely.
- I’d love to see the tools this artist used to cut this lacy octopus.
- Why art matters.
- I find this sculpture particularly moving.
- Your creativity requires structure.
Jun8
Creative Juice #96
I apologize—I forgot to post some Juice for you last week.
Here’s the latest installment of creative ideas from all over the web:
- Prize-winning photographs.
- If you haven’t read these classics, you should.
- Beautiful tangles!
- 50 years ago they were arrested. What happened to the Freedom Riders between then and now.
- Animals acting like people.
- How have I lived for 65 years without knowing about the existence of these exotic birds?
- This very short article on productivity makes some very good points.
- I love this artist’s watercolor journal.
- Steve Jobs had some dramatic failures, but he credited them as necessary lessons which made his great successes possible in this speech he made six years before his death.
- How the climate of teaching has changed in light of school shootings. (I know this isn’t about creativity, but this essay is so well-written I have to share it with smart people.)
- Stop-motion animation.
- Need wall art? There’s a robot for that.
Apr13
Creative Juice #89
Just in time for weekend reading:
- Embroidered portraits.
- What can you learn from Mozart?
- An interesting science connection to Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
- Life advice from an old barber.
- I can see me living in this houseboat.
- I thought maybe it was the mushroom, but that’s not what the mantis was high on.
- For anyone who shudders at the thought of public speaking.
- How to get stuff done. I’m fascinated with this guy’s daily schedule.
- Kyoto, Japan, seen through an artist’s eyes.
- Gorgeous tangles.
- Lovely sketchbook.
- Take a bird’s eye tour of Shanghai.
Mar15
Guest Post: 6 Ways to Increase Your Productivity as a Writer Without Burning Out by Jennifer Louden
Thank you to Writers in the Storm and to Jennifer Louden for these tips on avoiding writer burn out.
Just about every day I read an article about a writer who’s written 988 books in the last three months under seventeen pen names while maintaining an active presence on every social media platform.
It’s enough to send me to bed with Netflix and a whole lot of dark chocolate.
But after a good binge, you and I still have to face the fact: it’s a crazy world we authors inhabit. And staying sane and productive without burning out is a skill we must cultivate, right up there with establishing a compelling voice and a thriving platform.
Jennifer Louden, from her website
I’ve spent a big part of my career studying how writers can work with more ease and consistency, mostly because writing has always been a struggle for me (8 books with a million copies in print aren’t proof writing is easy for me, only that I’m stubborn). I hope the following suggestions for sane productivity will help you like they have me and the writers I coach.
Read the rest of the article here.
Mar15
Video of the Week #141: When is Less than Your Best Enough?
Dec5
Review of Growing Gills by Jessica Abel
Jessica Abel is a prolific comic book author, a writer, a cartoonist, and the chair of the illustration program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I became aware of her through her excellent blog. When I discovered she wrote a book about creative focus, I knew I wanted to learn from her.
Abel conducts workshops in creative focus, so her approach is very hands-on. The book is very hands-on, too. Each chapter has homework that applies the skills she talks about in the text, practical activities that will help you implement a different way of preparing, thinking, and working. I confess I haven’t done the exercises—yet—but I see how readers don’t fully benefit from just reading the book (you’ll just forget and work the way you always have); if you want to increase your focus (and productivity), you have to change the way you operate. The exercises enable you to implement successful creative strategies.
Growing Gills is subtitled How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life. It’s not a quick read. Transforming your creative life takes time.
The 19 chapters cover topics such as identifying passions and obstacles, idea debt, open loops, self-compassion, prioritizing, and breaking down a project into manageable tasks.
The book is divided into four parts.
In Part 1, So, What’s Stopping You, Abel identifies and defines what prevents creatives from finishing projects.
Part 2, Build your Custom-Powered Exoskeleton, covers goal-setting and creating a system to schedule your tasks and track your progress.
Part 3, Aligning your Today with your Tomorrow, helps you build a creative routine with enough flexibility that you don’t ignore your other life responsibilities.
Part 4, Falling Down & Getting Up, tells how to get going again when you get stuck.
Growing Gills is well-written by an established artist and writer, who understands the challenges of a being a creative, and has helped others overcome hurdles to productivity. It is well worth your time to read it, but do the associated activities to actually grow your own gills.
