10 Ways To Stay Creative When Stressed

Life creates stress. Sometimes it’s from your personal life. Sometimes it’s just stuff going on in your head. Sometimes it’s from work or school.

And stress builds. It builds and builds until it gets released or you break down.

But the worst thing about stress is that it creates an atmosphere the stifles creativity. It can choke the ability to think and make art. It can put you in a situation that you’re too busy being worried to actually produce. You’re too freaked out about the outcome that you can’t do the work. And you feel like you’re going to vomit.

But the truth of the matter is that you can get through it. The human body is amazing. Your mind is able to perform and deliver under all sorts of crazy circumstances. You just have to treat it right and push through the inevitable period of self-doubt. The true artists are those that are able to push past the wall and create something. They’re the ones that are able to deliver. And it’s not brainpower. It’s not genius. It’s just passion and effort.

But I’ve found over the past couple of years, that there are a couple of things that you can do to help stay creative while stressed:

1. Drink lots of water.
It’s good for your system. It keeps your body hydrated and your mind clear. Force yourself to drink a lot of water as your working through your stuff. Plus, drinking so much water will make you pee a lot. Which brings up my next point…

2. Don’t forget to get up and stretch.
Move your legs. Don’t stay chained to a desk for more than 30 minutes at a time. Even if you just take a quick 30 second break to get up and jump around to get your blood circulating. Your body isn’t designed to sit down in front of a screen and create. Give your eyes a break and look around.

3. Change locations.
A lot. Don’t stay in one place to study or work. Move around. You need to vary your surrounds to keep yourself motivated and feel like you’re moving in your project. Try different places and see how they impact your focus. Work on a picnic table. At the library. At your desk. In a conference room. It doesn’t matter. Just vary your surroundings. Get different inputs.

4. Drink caffeine.
I’ll give you some history – I’m not a coffee drinker. When I went to college, I promised that I wouldn’t get addicted to cigarettes or coffee. So, I don’t drink coffee. But I do drink Red Bull. It’s a last resort, but it works. Especially if you haven’t slept a lot and you need to stay sharp. Caffeine really helps you focus when you need to get stuff done and you’ve been burning for a long time.

5. Take your Flintstone vitamins.
Vitamins are good for you. And chances are, that if you’re stressed you’re probably not getting all of nutrients that you need from food. Or enough sunlight to generate the immune boosting Vitamin D. When you’re stressed, your system is more susceptible. Your normal defences are weakened and you get sick easier. So take your vitamins! The worst thing that can happen to being stressed is when you add being sick to it.

6. Avoid the greasy food.
It’s so easy to get seduced by the lure of greasy food. It’s comfort food. You’re stressed. It’s easy, cheap and convenient. But it’s bad for the brain. It slows your system down. It makes you sleepy and sloppy. It drains the blood from your brain and brings it to your stomach to process all of the grease. So try to keep it healthy when you’re stressed. (The exception to this rule is if you’re hung over. Then eat as much McDonald’s breakfast as you need to get better.)

7. Make a list. Check it twice.
Set down the things that you need to get accomplished. Then get moving on it. A lot of people find themselves worried about trying to get something done, but get stuck in a rut of stressing. They worry about not being able to get to their destination and forget to take the first step – start the work. By breaking a big task into smaller steps, it becomes less daunting. And then you can tackle the easy stuff first and start getting things done.

8. Change the music.
Music affects your mood. It can provide energy or serenity. Happiness or anger. So, use this to your advantage. If you’re freaking out about something, go to your happy place. Put on your headphones and listen to your happy song. If you need to keep pushing on your writing, throw on some upbeat adrenaline hip hop and turn up the volume.

9. Vent.
Talk to someone. Anyone. Someone that you trust. Someone that’s a good listener. Someone that will listen to you bitch about the same person or problem for 15 minutes without trying to change the subject. Because sometimes you just need to vent. You can’t keep it all bottled up inside. It chokes creativity. Let it out.

10. Have a creative outlet.
Like doodling. Or writing. Or character makeup. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Do something fun that reminds you why you like to create. Why you like to make art. Why you like to accomplish stuff. Because it’s fun. And it communicates to people. And it displays thought and emotion.

So those are the tips. Let me know if you have any more! And if you’re wondering why I’ve been stressed lately, it’s because I’ve been leading the team that created this.

- Christian

Imperfection

I hate the word imperfect. Things are not imperfect. They’re unique. Perfection is boring. It’s made by factories. It ensures that every car coming off the lot is exactly the same.

For the boring stuff, perfect is expected. The new box of Cheerios should taste exactly like the last box of Cheerios. No changes. No surprises. Just routine. But for the fun stuff, imperfection is exciting. It’s random. It’s unpredictable. It makes things unique.

I was recently given an Polaroid camera. It’s old. Probably at least 20 years. There are probably light leaks. The film that goes with this camera is expired. The chemicals will probably result in weird colours. Or overexposure. Or cracks. I have no idea. But I know that it won’t be perfect.

Flaws are what make us human. They’re what make us unique. They are what make a conversation with one person so different from the next. Imperfections are also lasting. Like a fingerprint.

Our fingerprints are formed while we are still in the womb. From the 10th to 13th weeks of development, the base cells of the skin layer become wavy or undulated. The pattern is never the same between two fetuses. This is because the environment in which a fetus develops contains various salts, nutrients and proteins that are constantly changing. By the 17th week, our fingerprint patters are established for the rest of our lives in the most base epidermal layer. For the this reason, simple cuts do not alter our fingerprints. They are with us for life.

Creativity is empowered by flaws. Errors allow you to discover new ideas, new ways of thought and new process. Imperfections fuel thinking and the creative process. They push us forward through accidental discovery.

The most compelling and creative art actually incorporate flaws instead of avoiding them. The errors in brush stroke, lens focus or grammar show vulnerability. It’s the essence of humanity and emotion. It shows courage. Courage to say, “This is what I made. This is what it expresses. For the good, the bad and the mistakes.”

- Christian

How To Fail – The Max Power Way

We have been brainwashed into thinking that failure is a bad thing. It shows that you can’t do something. That you weren’t able to achieve your goals.

So people become afraid. The get paralyzed by fear. They don’t do anything, because they might do it wrong. It’s better to last in obscurity than to be humiliated failing in public, right?

That’s wrong.

Failure isn’t a result. It’s a beginning. It provides you the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. To test things out. To course correct.

We all have a million and one ideas in our head of how to improve our lives. How to achieve our goals. How to create new products. But only a fraction of us actually act on those thoughts. Because the rest are afraid of failure.

It’s easy to remain stagnant. It’s easy to stay the same. It’s easy to be afraid and make excuses. It’s hard to risk failure.

A STORY OF TWO PEOPLE
I have two friends. One year ago, the same thing happened to both of them. They wanted to apply to medical school. They both ordered their applications. One of them worked on her application, submitted her MCATs and applied.

The other thought about it and figured that she wouldn’t get accepted, so she didn’t apply. She didn’t want to get the rejection letter, so she cut herself off before they could reject her!

They are of comparable intelligence. They have similar experience and passion for the medicine. But one of them is now in medical school and one of them isn’t.

THE MAX POWER PRINCIPLE
In failure, I like to apply the Max Power Principle. When failing, make sure that you fail fast. You don’t want to waste your time in trying to achieve something that’s not going to happen. Not all of your ideas are going to be winners. Just get as many out there as you possibly can and see if they work. If they crash and burn, be willing to walk away.

It doesn’t matter how much time or money you invested behind a concept. If it’s not right there’s no need to invest MORE time and money behind it.

There was a chance that Idea Drunk would be a failure. Three years and over 300 posts later, it would seem like a success. But there are tons of other blog and writing projects that have crashed and burned. Like this. Or this.

Do what Max Power does – fail quickly and fail often.

- Christian

Be Offensive

I’m on Hugh’s mailing list. Today, it linked to an art piece that provoked me.

“Not much happens when you’re trying to make everyone happy, as Lenin is often credited with saying: “If you want to make an omelet, must be willing to  break a few eggs.

People tend to overreact these days when they are confronted with ideas that they find objectionable. Paradoxically, it is only those ideas that push the boundaries and wind up effecting change.

We are trained not to offend, to be politically correct, and not to disrupt the status quo.

The next time you hear an idea that offends, or to which you immediately answer in the negative, stop and think about ‘what if’ and see if there is a way that idea could make sense.

Pushing the edges is what nudges progress.“

Word. I agree with pushing the boundaries, being confident with your ideas and being okay with offending people (especially if it’s with the truth). But there’s a limit. Namely, they have to be good ideas. If the idea is craptastic and you’re just an asshole, you do not have the right to offend. However, if people are resisting it because it’s new and different and they don’t comprehend it, offend away.

Be offensive with your ideas, not your behaviour.

- Christian

Simple Advice

I was reading David Trott’s blog and came across this post. It’s simple, direct and to the point. It’s also brilliant.

1. CHUCK OUT THE BRIEF
Don’t always accept the planner’s brief. It’s sometimes just a form of words which manages to get into one sentence all the contradictory things that the client and the account team wanted to say.

2. RELAX
Sit back and sniff around the problem. Have fun. Tell stories and jokes around the subject. That way your might come at the problem from an unexpected angle.

3. DO THE OPPOSITE
Think of what everybody else does in the category of product you’re advertising and do the opposite. Why do all our car ads look the same? Why do all our washing powder ads look the same? Why not do a car ad like a washing powder ad? Or vice versa. It may not work but it just might.

4. LEAVE THE OFFICE
You’ll never be a good writer of anything if you just sit in your office and stare at your desk. Your new material isn’t in the office or in Groucho’s for the matter. It’s out on the streets. Look at pictures. Listen to music. Go to films. See plays. And more importantly look at people.

5. FIGHT FOR IT
People don’t like the great ideas. They’re original. Which means they’re unfamiliar and therefore frightening. This explains why mediocre advertisements sail through without touching the sides, whereas people always find a million and one reasons why a great idea should never run.

Now, this isn’t stuff that you didn’t already know. At some point in time, every creative director has probably spouted similar advice and ideas. The challenge isn’t knowing what to do, but actually doing it. Millions of people each year read self-help books. But only a handful of motivated individuals to go out there and actually help themselves.

- Christian

Pharrell – Idea Drunk Version

When you’re trying to focus on something, it’s crazy how everything you see, hear or experience seems to relate to it. When you break up with a girl, every single song, magazine article or movie seems to be about love. When you’re building a business, every contact, newspaper article or TED talk seems to be about growing opportunity. When you’re spending so much of your time trying to draw out your own creative inspiration, you start seeing it everywhere.

Thanks for It’s Amazing for the original quote.

- Christian

3 Things Ultimate Frisbee Taught Me About Creativity

Chris Loat in his “action pose.”

For most people, the arrival of summer means relaxing in the sun, enjoying beers on a patio and maybe even weekends away at the cottage with their friends. For me it means running around outside chasing a plastic disc. That’s right. Ultimate season is back. Which means my body is going through a glorious combination of muscle pain, exhaustion and (of course) a wonderful t-shirt tan.

I’ve written before about how my team’s experience at Ontario Regionals a couple of years ago was able to highlight life lessons. And Chris Loat claims to still read that post when he needs a pick-me-up. Here’s a couple of things that I’ve learned since then:

1. Planning Only Provides The Framework
I moved from a system of ultimate that was more free flowing to one with a lot more structure and set plays. But it’s easy to get lost in the complexity of play-calling, positions, and roles and forget what you’re out there to do – score. The set plays only provide a loose framework to get things started. After that, it all turns into flow. You just go with what the defense is giving you and where the open opportunities are. You can’t predict everything on the field, so why try? The same thing applies for brainstorms. You can provide a starting structure to a idea session, but that’s it. Don’t try to control it after that. Just let things ride. Because you never know where an idea is going to go. All you can do is point everyone in one direction and see where it leads.

2. The Best Team Doesn’t Always Win
You can have a team of superstars with a lot of experience and skill. But that means nothing. A team who wants it more and is willing to bust their butts to put it all on the line can overwhelm and upset a top seed. Because with a top seeding come arrogance and complacency. They are already the best and expect people to be intimidated. I was playing on a men’s pickup team at nationals last year. We were seeded last and had literally never practiced with each other before. Our second game was against the first seed in the tournament. We came out with a ton of energy and started the game by going up 3-1 on them. They nearly shit their pants.

The exact same thing can happen with creative. Hard work and putting in the hours will give you better thoughts, ideas and creative. Even if you’re competing against the smartest people in your industry, if they’ve become complacent, you have a shot. You may not have the skill or experience, but if you can exploit their arrogance with hard work, then you’re golden.

3. You Need An Asshole At Practice.
You need someone to push you to run through a hellish fitness program. To yell at you when you drop a disc. To make you throw 100 perfect throws in a row. Because that’s what makes you a better player. Developing your creative skills requires the same motivating asshole. You need someone to criticise your work. To poke holes in your ideas. To trash your creative. Because that’s what pushes you to be better. It’s what forces you to grow your thinking and deliver better ideas.

That’s it. Thoughts?

- Christian

Stanford d.School

Cognitive scientists say our short term memories can only hold on to between five and nine things at any one time. Which means, if you have a brilliant insight on how to solve your company’s supply chain problems and your brain is already at capacity, that great idea could be bounced by a fleeting thought, like “Wonder what I should have for lunch?”

This isn’t likely to happen at the new Stanford d.school. The entire space is designed for idea capture, with whiteboard walls, Post-it Notes proliferating like confetti, big 3-M pads of paper, and markers and crayons readily at hand.

Some creepy Stanford guy brainstorming  in the “White Room”.

In the most radical, Zen-like space in the place, a small room, furnished only with a big white ottoman, is literally painted in whiteboard paint. If your ideas outgrow the walls, brainstorm on down to the floor.

“This white room is one of our most-used spaces,” says d.school executive director George Kembel (above). “Your ideas are the color that fill the room.”

I would add this to my list of Top 5 Places To Find Inspiration. Although there’s a chance that the first 30 minutes in that room would be restraining myself from drawing inappropriate figures akin to those in Superbad.

- Christian

Article from Fast Company

PIXAR On Creative Management

I found an interview of Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar. It’s awesome to see into the mind of the guy who is successfully managing one of the most creative companies on the planet. See a selection of quotes and the interview here.

- Christian

Three Tips From The Satorialist

Starting in September of 2005, Scott Schuman became The Sartorialist, a fashion blogger with a lot more up his tailored coat sleeves than street shots of pretty people. He has created a thriving street style blog, not only accrediting himself as a guy with a great eye for fashion, but as a world-recognized photographer, and as a brand.

Here’s three tips from him on ideas, creativity and going for it:

1. IDEAS COME FROM A NEED
“A lot of times they say great ideas come from not trying to create a marketing group, but by just acting on what you want that’s not there. I was inspired by guys wearing this old-school Italian style not being covered by GQ or Esquire, and went out to shoot them.”

2. DON’T REPORT IT, CAPTURE IT
“I take pictures of people that I find inspiring in whatever, and am totally open to what that inspiration could be. Clothes, sense of dignity–could be hairstyle, or it could be more abstract. What separates me is that I work very hard not to report what I’m seeing, but try to capture it in the way that I’m feeling it. I don’t care what they’re wearing–Marni, Prada, et cetera–I just want to shoot it in the romantic way I see it.”

3. IDEA FIRST, FINANCES LATER
“Don’t focus on the money. When you create something that people truly have a passion for, things just happen. I’m going to Australia, because they’ve invited me to tour Australia. They’re not paying me, but I’m not paying for the trip, so financially, it’s ambiguous… I did this as a hobby when I was a stay-at-home dad, and I’m proud of the fact that I went ahead and did this. Money grew based on the fact that it generated while I was doing it. Passion was there before cash.”

- Christian

Inspired by Fast Company.