Three weeks ago I talked about doing the job right the first time, about taking the time to do it well so that you wouldn't have to revisit work you had completed to fix it later. The following week, I discussed relaxing your own expectations around how well jobs needed to be done to be considered done well. And last week, I offered guidance on recognizing your abilities for what they are rather than demanding perfection in everything, about taking it in stride.
How do you get started though? All that is well and good when you get to the end, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What should be the first step? Say you're writing an argument for a legal document or a story or a speech or documentation for your company's product, or whatever. Where do you begin?
Often, the most productive first step you can take is to simply data dump everything that comes to mind. Spend 10 minutes or an hour or however long it takes and get all your thoughts written down on paper. Every thought, no matter how it relates ("did I leave the iron on?" is OK) gets added to your paper somewhere. Dump it all. Once you get the hang of it you'll cramp your fingers, you'll be writing so much. Get it all down.
Then walk away.
An amazing thing will happen. Your mind will open up and you'll be able to think more clearly. Your thoughts will stop going through the same gyrations repeatedly, and you'll find new ideas and new insights. Your memory will stop forcing itself to the front of your attention, and this will give room for your creative mind to step in and generate new ideas. Once the memory is freed from its job of holding everything, you'll find yourself full of energy and functioning more effectively.
That's the whole point. To free the mind, you must free yourself from the jobs the mind feels it is necessary to perform. Have you ever noticed that really creative people are generally not as good with remembering the day-to-day stuff? Part of that is out of our control, but another part of that is learned. You can learn to be more creative if you relax the structured mind from it's duty.
Of course, it won't happen that way overnight. If you have years of experience remembering every little detail of everything you need to do, you'll have to retrain your brain to focus itself elsewhere.
And you'll find that the mind is like a fountain when you start getting all the remembered stuff out of the way. It might take three or four sessions just to get through the ridiculous minutiae that you cart around with you moment you're awake. Then it will take more data dumps to bring out all the new stuff you uncovered. And it will take a while for the mind to trust that all the stuff you're writing down will really be remembered and not just lost or thrown away. So you have to put it in a place where you'll revisit it regularly (your to-do list, or your journal, or wherever it needs to go).
But once you get everything out, your creativity will be able to soar.
So you've dumped everything relevant to the paper you're writing. Walk away. Take a day off. Later you'll have to deal with all the info. Organize it. Throw it in an outline. If you know how to mind-map, that's even better. Get all the bits put together cohesively, and from those groupings create the framework that will become your finished product.
But that's for later. For now, just get it out there.
Other news
- Who says we're not an instant gratification society? 'Patients get an instant result' [news.bbc.co.uk]
- Well, duh! Anaesthetic drug 'numbs memory' [news.bbc.co.uk]
- If the shoe, or rather bra, fits: Right bra 'could halt breast ops' [news.bbc.co.uk]
Quote for the week
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao-tzu
From the editor
I know, I know, I keep mentioning an upcoming change to the way the newsletter will be distributed. However, I still need to do a little research before I'm sure how to proceed with the changes. Most important to me is that there is no disruption in distribution while I'm switching everything over... therefore, it will be coming soon, but I'm not sure when.
That means this week you can sit back and enjoy the week and not have to do anything until later. At least as far as this newsletter is concerned. Cheers!
Healthy thoughts,
Jeff
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