Tag: creativity

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The power of focus — Part 2

Cougars, like all cats, fo­cus in­tently on their prey.

Some people find it easy to in­tensely fo­cus but, for a lot of us it re­quires some thought and plan­ning to achieve this state. My ba­sics to set the stage are time, place, and short breaks.

Time : A reg­u­lar sched­ule will al­low your body and brain to be­come ac­cus­tomed to the routine and settle in more easily.

Everyone has their own time of the day or night when they are at peak fo­cus. This is when you ex­per­i­ence your sharpest think­ing and cre­at­ive en­ergy. For me, it’s early morn­ing be­fore any­thing else clut­ters up my mind.

Place: This is the space where you keep your tools – pen and pa­per, com­puter, paint­brush, whatever. Going to your cre­at­ive spot at reg­u­lar times lets your cre­at­ive side know it’s time to wake up.

Ideally, this is a quiet place where you’ll be un­dis­turbed. If si­lence is im­possible, ear plugs or noise-can­cel­ling head­phones can shut out or re­duce sounds.

Distractions are the en­emy of fo­cus. It’s best to shut off or not re­spond to com­puter and cell phone no­ti­fic­a­tions while work­ing. Talking also dis­rupts the cre­at­ive cir­cuit, as it uses a dif­fer­ent part of the brain.

Although some people think they’re great at mul­ti­task­ing, re­search shows that, on av­er­age, it takes ap­prox­im­ately 25 minutes to re­gain fo­cus after an interruption.

Breaks: Just like our bod­ies need a break from sit­ting or stand­ing, the brain needs peri­od­ic time-outs to op­er­ate at max­im­um ca­pa­city. Ten to fif­teen minutes of activ­it­ies that re­quire little thought, such as fold­ing laun­dry, weed­ing, or stretch­ing, give your brain a rest.

Going out­side, be­ing in nature, and walk­ing are es­pe­cially help­ful. When I told chiro­pract­or, Alicia Steele, that I fre­quently find solu­tions to writ­ing prob­lems while walk­ing, she ex­plained that the bi­lat­er­al move­ment of arms and legs pro­motes activ­ity in both sides of the brain.

Taking a break and do­ing some­thing re­l­at­ively mind­less can en­hance fo­cus and cre­ativ­ity, but the key is to not think about the pro­ject you’re work­ing on.

While re­search­ing The Cougar, Beautiful, Wild and Dangerous, I was amazed at the big cat’s in­tense con­cen­tra­tion. When mov­ing in on prey, they nev­er shift their gaze away from it, even when circ­ling around or chan­ging position.

They’re totally fo­cused. Just like the man I saw jump­ing from a stand­still up six feet onto a con­crete ledge. (See The power of fo­cus – Part 1)

 

References:

“Want to be more cre­at­ive? Let your Mind Wander,” Sian Beilock, Psychology Today. 

“Keep the Focus on Your Long-term Vision,” Mayo Clinic.

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein.

 

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The power of focus — Part 1

A Great Blue Heron look­ing for fish.

It was a cold and blustery, yet thor­oughly splen­did fall day when I roun­ded a corner near the mar­ina and saw the man. He crouched slightly at the bot­tom of con­crete stairs, arms ex­ten­ded, el­bows bent and palms fa­cing each oth­er. The most un­usu­al thing was that he re­mained per­fectly still for at least two minutes. He re­minded me of a her­on wait­ing for a fish to spear.

He was at the entry­way of the path I wanted to take so I paused to fig­ure out what was go­ing on. Then, In one flu­id move­ment, he lowered his arms, raised them and jumped lightly onto the six foot con­crete ledge in front of him. The fact that the heels of his feet hung over the edge did noth­ing to hamper him from slowly and grace­fully stand­ing up.

I was awed by his strength and body con­trol. But even more so by his in­tense fo­cus. And he had good reas­on to fo­cus. If his jump had failed, he would have fallen back­wards onto the con­crete, per­haps break­ing his back, head or end­ing his life altogether.

Dumbfounded, I didn’t even see him re­turn to his start­ing po­s­i­tion. But there he was again, crouched at the bot­tom of the stairs with no dis­cern­able signs of movement.

He seemed ob­li­vi­ous to me or any­thing else but I wor­ried about dis­tract­ing him, so slowly con­tin­ued my walk with head tilted down­wards, peek­ing at him from un­der the brim of my hat as he ex­ecuted two more per­fect jumps.

By now, I was close enough to no­tice that he was speak­ing to someone, through Bluetooth ear buds after each jump. Was the per­son on the oth­er end coach­ing him? Or were they a safety link in case he fell?

Later, I wished I’d stopped to talk to him but there was no way I wanted to in­ter­rupt his con­cen­tra­tion. As a writer, I’ve been in a sim­il­ar state a few times — sur­fa­cing from a story to real­ize hours have passed in­stead of five minutes, or to dis­cov­er the faint sound I’d been hear­ing was really a repair­man pound­ing on the door, ir­rit­ated that I wasn’t let­ting him in when he could see me sit­ting at my desk.

Intense fo­cus is not easy to achieve. Especially these days with cell­phones and oth­er devices read­ily to hand. But it’s an art worth achieving.

Check out the up­com­ing November blog to read about cou­gars and fo­cus, as well as sci­en­tific­ally proven ways to gen­er­ate that state of mind.

Photo cred­it Joshua Goddard

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Painter Bev Byerley on creativity

The west coast land­scape is the cre­at­ive in­spir­a­tion for most of Bev Byerley’s paintings. 

As a writer, cre­ativ­ity in­trigues me. Why do we seek it? How do we find it? 

While I con­tin­ue to ex­plore the concept in my per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, I’m also curi­ous about how people in oth­er fields of artist­ic en­deavor, find their muse. Painter Bev Byerley was kind enough to share her thoughts below. 

First of all, I take pho­tos of my fa­vor­ite places. Usually it’s just a few in­ter­est­ing lines I see in these pho­tos that sparks my cre­at­ive interest.

Then I sketch the bare bones, em­phas­iz­ing the lines that I find in­triguing, with a paint brush and dark col­oured paint. After the ini­tial sketch I’m full of artist­ic ex­cite­ment and be­gin to block in col­ours and cov­er the canvas.

It’s usu­ally about this time that I real­ize just how much work it’s go­ing to take to pro­duce the im­age I have in my head. My en­ergy level wanes and I have to push my­self to keep going.

But when I do, there comes the point that I can see the fin­ish line and the ini­tial spark re­turns with all the en­ergy and en­thu­si­asm to com­plete the piece.

For me, paint­ing is like walk­ing a long dis­tance; pla­cing one foot in front of an­oth­er, and an­oth­er, and another…

Then sud­denly you’re there.

To view more of Bev’s work, vis­it www​.bevby​er​ley​.com. 

 

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What fuels your creativity?

Being cre­at­ive can be as chal­len­ging as grabbing a hand­ful of fog. The mind and body may be will­ing, but the muse of­ten chooses its own time to ap­pear. Some people seem to be in a con­stant state of cre­at­ive con­scious­ness, while oth­ers grunt and grind their way along as if push­ing a two-ton rock up a steep hill.

But soon­er or later, most cre­at­ives ex­per­i­ence an “aha!” mo­ment that pro­pels them for­ward on a rush of star-stud­ded euphoria.

So, what flips the switch from mundane to innovative?

Sometimes I can write my way into a cre­at­ive flow by play­ing with a vari­ety of words, scen­ari­os and ran­dom com­bin­a­tions. Or a walk in the woods or along the Salish Sea can trans­form neb­u­lous thoughts into a quirky idea.

And, al­though far less en­joy­able, cre­at­ive thoughts also emerge while do­ing some­thing mind­less like wash­ing dishes or vacuuming.

But even when strug­gling, I’m drawn to the craft of story.

Curiosity is the driv­ing force be­hind my cre­ativ­ity. Even as a child I was al­ways ask­ing ques­tions and si­lently watch­ing what people did and the ways oth­ers re­acted. I want to know why some­thing hap­pens and how people be­come who they are.

Inspiration is usu­ally sparked by an ex­tern­al in­cid­ent: rot­ting fish be­ing con­ver­ted into oo­ligan grease, a cou­gar scream­ing in the green­space be­hind my home or feel­ing un­com­fort­able around the home­less in my community.

I’m in­trigued by the reas­ons people live and act the way they do. And of the dark that lies be­low the sur­face some­times swim­ming to the top to wreak hav­oc. What’s the back­story? How do people change? Or even survive?

In pre­vi­ous books, I’ve ex­amined re­la­tion­ships between people and wild­life, the land­scape, and oth­er cul­tures. Now I’m ex­plor­ing a more in­tim­ate re­la­tion­ship, that of a fam­ily shattered by past events, nev­er ac­know­ledged or spoken about.

Switching from non­fic­tion to fic­tion is a chal­lenge, lead­ing to much thought and con­tem­pla­tion. On his web­site, in­ter­na­tion­ally renowned au­thor Michael Connelly says he re­cently cre­ated a new series, “Because you have to write like a shark. You keep mov­ing or you die creatively.”

Now I’m ex­er­cising my cre­at­ive muscles in dif­fer­ent ways and learn­ing new as­pects of the story-telling jour­ney. Writing like a shark in­volves change and step­ping out­side my com­fort zone.

I nev­er know how each dance with the muse will turn out but that’s part of the charm. Every story is an adventure.