Enhance Your Creativity

Ink Spray Journal Map

Ever lose your drive when you're writing or working on a project? The following 5 strategies work well to put you back in gear...

1. Classical music enhances creativity and intellectual pursuits.  Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart work well to keep you focused so that you achieve a state of effortless concentration and enjoyment or "flow."  Try playing any of the following when you approach your creative project today:

• St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach
• Nisi Dominus by Vivaldi
• Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach
• Rondo in A by Mozart
• Piano concertos nos. 20, 21, 23, 24 by Mozart
• The Four Seasons by Vivaldi
• Canon in D Major by Pachelbel
• Violin Sonata no. 5 in F Major, op. 24 "The Spring" by Beethoven

2.   5 Tips Past a Creative Rut  Ever try mediation by doing something else as Lori McNee suggests?  Here's how to start...

• Stop waiting for inspiration to strike.  As the old saying goes, "A watched pot never boils."
• Pick something monotonous to do like mowing the lawn or washing the dishes.  Your brain will keep working on an inspiration, like a pot cooking stew on the back burner.
• Once your mind starts to wander, you'll be surprised how quickly it will start generating ideas.
• The trick is to record the ideas as soon as they pop up, so you don't forget them.

I like to keep 3 x 5 cards and a pen in my pocket so I don't lose sight of new insights.  What's your tactic?

3. Romance Your Creativity The creative process is very much like a relationship, the Idea Champions remind us.  "And like most relationships, it usually begins with fascination -- that curious state of mind that keeps you spellbound, charmed, and aroused." But we all know that soon wears off. What then?

If you are serious about your current hot idea, be willing to get closer to it. Be willing to go from the romance stage to an intimate relationship.

Understand what the creative process is -- an impossible-to-deny encounter with yourself -- your fears, your power, your vision, and what drives you to play the game of life.

Above all, do whatever it takes to put the elation back into your relationship to creativity.

I'm in, are you?

4.  Stop Multitasking  "Have your technology tools begun to manage you?" Myra While asks.  If you're constantly multitasking, you are deluding yourself because the brain literally focuses on one thing at a time.  Can you take focus away from driving for more than a moment?  The reason is that your brain bottlenecks.  And...

Constantly switching between even small tasks creates brain overload. Studies in which people's brains are scanned while multi-tasking clearly show that switching between tasks consumes a large portion of the brain's processing capacity.

5. Leverage Your Creative Fears Fears are actually something we *create,* Marianne Mullen says. Knowing that fear never goes away, you can truly learn to leverage your fear, and she provides seven steps to to just that. 

• Name it
• Own it
• Disprove it
• Claim it
• Act on it
• Acknowledge it
• Repeat it - Make a strong commitment to your creativity and trust in yourself that taking risks can only create more confidence and that you ARE getting stronger than your fears.

To see the details for each one, awaken your creativity by leveraging it or work these out in your way.

Once I published 12 Sparks for Heads-Up Creativity, on Forbes' Mind Makeover, I could not let go of my project.  Ever have that happen?  Would you be willing to share a strategy to "fire up" your creativity?  If so, provide the details or a link where I can find it.

Ink Spray Journal Map by Joanna Paterson.

Multitasking Leave You Frazzled?

Do you feel overwhelmed on the job as text messages arrive on your cell, the phone rings and someone steps into your work space?  One professional woman in her early 60's said she came home exhausted after work.  "When she put a loaf of bread in the dryer, she said she knew she had to stop burning the candle at both ends," Edward T. Creagan, M.D. of the Mayo Clinic shares.

Throughout the day, I get curious about who's sent me an email or what's happening around the world, so I quickly check Twitter or my email for a quick update. But my attention quickly moves to these formats and off my current work.  Even though I think I can trust my will-power to check at scheduled points in a day, before I know it I look in without thinking and my focus shifts.  Is this true for you as well?

Imagine this... "Allison Miller, aged 14, sends and receives 27,000 text messages a month, according to Seth Godin. "Hey, that's only about sixty an hour, every hour she's awake."

Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.  And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.

Added to that, the nonstop interactivity is one of the most significant shifts ever in the human environment, said Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco.

For example, when Gloria Mark, University of California at Irvine researcher first started her faculty job, she only completed a small portion of what she hoped to do in a day.  "Madness," she thought. "I'm trying to do 30 things at once."  Mark decided to figure out why multitasking worked against her. Mark, a scientist of human-computer interactions conducted a research study to find out more.

When she "crunched the data, a picture of 21st-century office work emerged that was, she says, far worse than I could ever have imagined." Is this typical at your workplace?

Each employee spent only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted and whisked off to do something else. What's more, each 11-minute project was itself fragmented into even shorter three-minute tasks, like answering e-mail messages, reading a Web page or working on a spreadsheet. And each time a worker was distracted from a task, it would take, on average, 25 minutes to return to that task. To perform an office job today, it seems, your attention must skip like a stone across water all day long, touching down only periodically.

Though Gloria Mark and Mary Czerwinski, an interruption scientist, separately looked at people working at their desks, a pattern emerged. People stuck all kinds of Post-It notes around their computer screens. Workers swore this made them feel calmer.

Consider this possibility...

But did more screen area actually help with cognition? Czerwinski mulled it over. As a result, she compared the number of tasks completed for a group of 15 workers at a 15 inch monitor versus the number of tasks the same workers completed at a 42 inch monitor. Productivity...

On the bigger screen, people completed the tasks at least 10 percent more quickly - and some as much as 44 percent more quickly. They were also more likely to remember the seven-digit number, which showed that the multitasking was clearly less taxing on their brains. Some of the volunteers were so enthralled with the huge screen that they begged to take it home. In two decades of research, Czerwinski had never seen a single tweak to a computer system so significantly improve a user's productivity. The clearer your screen, she found, the calmer your mind. So her group began devising tools that maximized screen space by grouping documents and programs together - making it possible to easily spy them out of the corner of your eye, ensuring that you would never forget them in the fog of your interruptions.

These insights can help us work more effectively with our brain than against it.

What's your experience?

Hmmm... think I'll see where I can get a good buy on a larger computer monitor. You?

8 Strategies to Reboot Your Brain for Active Listening

As someone talks about an innovative project do you find exciting ideas sizzle in your mind? At times, I can begin to run with just one piece of what a colleague says and think very creatively. Whoa, I am not listening.  Do you have a similar issue? Interestingly, as you mull over a new idea in your mind, you miss a portion of what the other person says. Listening takes intentional focus.

The way our brains work, deeply affects listening capability. Here's why...

Not too surprisingly, at least three facets of how the human brain works, impact our listening and speech patterns. When we hear an exciting idea, we may be tempted to build on that in our own mind. Our brain's neurotransmitters release dopamine, helping us to feel the pleasure of a reward. The pleasure we receive from forming new ideas in our minds may work at odds with truly listening to another person.

Likewise, patterns of past interactions stored in your basal ganglia, impacts personal mental mindsets.  For instance, if you have attended workshops, meetings, company training sessions, or have not engaged in meaningful conversation with certain people, you can see why you will need extra spark to be attentive.

Over time, the speech patterns we adopt culturally, affect the way we listen to others. The brain's basal ganglia, described by Dr. Ellen Weber, is a "mental storehouse for habits, routines and ruts for every lifetime experience you've encountered." If you are used to forming new ideas so you can respond during a pause as someone else talks, you do not listen well.

The brain mainly focuses on one thing at a time. For instance this is why it is impossible to text and drive at the same time since multitasking causes the brain to bottleneck. Perhaps this bottle necking proclivity shows exactly why it takes such intentional focus to truly listen to someone as s/he speaks. So how do we begin to focus more on listening?

"Interest or importance is inextricably linked to attention," according to John Medina in his book, Brain Rules. Medina notes that researchers refer to this as arousal.

8 Strategies to Reboot your Brain for keen listening...

Value the speaker When you listen well, and give another person's thoughts keen contemplation before you answer, you serve both yourself and that person well. Why not take a card or memo pad to events to jot down key words that jog your ideas later? In this way you can engage even more of the other person's idea and you will have even more to go on later.

Eye contact counts When you truly look at some one's eyes as he or she speaks, you jack  up your focus.  If you are in a busy room full of activity, you could be easily distracted. Laughter, catching part of a joke, seeing someone you want to contact, can take away your attention quickly. Because the brain tends to focus on one thing at a time, I have to really focus on the eye contact.  It makes a difference for me. You?

MITA Two-footed questions As you listen intently ask questions that take the person's ideas to a new angle or a facet you want to know more about. People enjoy telling you their best ideas. By keeping the focus on that person's interest, you can go deeper with him or her.  In so doing, you will find that you will have more buy in yourself. The conversation thus moves from neutral, to one in which you are keenly interested.  As you gain interest, you are bringing more of your right brain, the creative side, to the conversation.

Active listening  A friend from China, Wen Ma, shared that in his culture people listen actively and contemplate the person's point and take time before they respond.  Active listening can improve a sales person's abilities to engage well since it listening well enough to respond to clients' needs helps clinch all-important deals.

Words block distractions  If you find your mind is distracted when someone speaks, say a word in your head such as, "focus," or "clear the mechanism." Then replace this with a key word you hear from the person speaking to move your thoughts with his or hers.

Posture counts - lean in  By leaning in as you listen, it boosts your concentration and creates a deeper connection to other people.

Practice makes perfect  If you can see the need to improve on past listening habits you've developed, as have I, they can be changed. And it's related to the human brain's amazing plasticity. Very recently researchers began to explore this aspect of the brain even more.

Here's a listening test found on Psychology Today. Start with their analysis to change where you stand...

Thoughts or additions?

Losing Your Ability to Concentrate?

My experience is what I agree to attend to William James

Easily distracted? Though many jobs require high concentration, psychologists are finding out that even when people try to focus on a task, they tend to lose concentration... within 40 minutes and sometimes as little as 10.

"You can drive yourself crazy trying to multitask and answer every e-mail message instantly," says Winifred Gallagher, author of Rapt, a guide to living a focused life.

Ever go to a coffee shop or a restaurant where there's a TV and find your eyes quickly diverting to something that catches your attention on the screen to take your focus away from your conversation with a work colleague? I've noticed that if I have TweetDeck on one computer monitor and my work on the other, my focus on work is soon disintegrated. Why is that?

When something bright or novel flashes, it tends to automatically win the competition for the brain's attention. Dr. Robert Desimone, M.I.T. neuroscientist, calls that "biased competition." He found that neurons in the prefrontal cortex, the brain's planning center, start oscillating in unison and send signals directing the visual cortex to heed something else. So if you're reading a book and a television commercial diverts you, you may not have enough resources left to focus on the words.

Why it's hard to multitask

Doing too much makes you slower and dumber

90% of American adults are multitasking. However, they may not be more productive since six out of ten agree they're "busier," but often feel like they get less done.

Multitasking is notoriously inefficient though at certain optimal times it can be efficient.

What helps increase focus then? Gallagher advocates

Meditation exercises

Concentrate on most important task of day during first 90 minutes at work

Use ear plugs to shut out distracting noises

I'd add three:

Play baroque music softly as you write or work

Turn off cell phone, TV and electronic gadgets

Use new and creative approaches for routine tasks

I want to spend every day very mindfully to accomplish work and find pleasure in it, too. Winifred Gallagher discovered she had cancer so she viewed time with new perspective.

How do you overcome distractions to accomplish your daily work?

Cartoon source: Ming.tv

Driving Under Influence of Cells

Bailey Goodman and four recent Fairport High grads drove to the Finger Lakes to enjoy time together before summer took them in new directions... On the way, Bailey's cell jingled arrival of a friend's text message. What's up? A curious teen would look to see... Thirty-eight seconds later, someone called 911 to report the fiery collision with a tractor trailer, which snuffed out lives of Bailey and her four friends. Phone records show the phone in use at the time of the collision. Ever wonder whether the human brain can focus on texting and driving all at once?

Joanna Young quizzed me, too, in comments following Kickstart Cellphone Smarts...

I wonder if it's maybe also the need for speed and the fear of missing something if we delay the transaction for another time when it's more convenient.

"Just listening to a cell phone while driving is a significant distraction," according to Carnegie Mellon University scientists, "and it causes drivers to commit some of the same types of driving errors that can occur under the influence of alcohol."

The use of cell phones, including dialing and texting, has long been a safety concern for drivers. But the Carnegie Mellon study, for the first time, used brain imaging to document that listening alone reduces by 37 percent the amount of brain activity associated with driving. This can cause drivers to weave out of their lane, based on the performance of subjects using a driving simulator.

Compounded by curiosity to "know" now, and not later, a typical teen's attention quickly moves from the road to the cell's new text message.

"Drivers need to keep not only their hands on the wheel; they also have to keep their brains on the road," said neuroscientist Marcel Just, Director, Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging.

Problem is the brain's ability to multitask. Some research shows that drivers engage in a distracting activity on an average one every six minutes, which frequently results in driving errors and road accidents. In fact, distraction causes one in five crashes in Australia.

"They were the nicest girls," said Elaine Deignan, the cheerleading coach. "They were the most respectful, pleasant and fun to be around. Just really good people."

Accidents that involve cells can be avoided. Ready to delay finding out who's so anxious to reach you and know what they want? Let's shut off our cells to avoid D.U.I.

This blog is my second contribution to Brad Shorr's challenge to write on cell phone abuse.

Surprises Come to Those Who Listen!

Why is it that a brief message whispered from one person to the next, in a line of ten people, changes by the time the last person receives it? What does this tell you about listening?

The ability to listen well requires active engagement – your brain is not only taking in facts or information, but interpreting and organizing it in relation to past experience and knowledge to hypothesize and problem solve creatively. How might that look in relation to an everyday business deal?

Interestingly, financial writer William Devine shares that a client asked him to negotiate the purchase of some land. Trouble was the person's offer was $100,000 below asking price. Mr. Devine stayed on the phone a long time with the owner and resolved most problems, but the owner returned to the money issue and declared, "The price your client proposes will leave us well short of our projections. That makes it very tough on us."

During a pause, Devine reflected on his alternatives. Since the developer hadn't asked a question or made a counteroffer, Devine waited. Finally the owner proposed, "…it's good for us to just get the deal done, so we'll do it." Devine declared, "I had saved a client $100,000 by simply immobilizing my jaw." Mr. Devine made a great choice because he was not merely focusing on his own agenda here, but listened actively to make a choice. Would you have listened and allowed silence? Would you term yourself an engaged, active listener?

Try this listening quiz to see where you stand. List A, B or C as shown below to answer.

A = less than 20% B = 21 – 59% C = 60% or more

1. Do you think about other things when someone is speaking? _____


2. Do you “tune out and turn off” a speaker when you are not interested? _____


3. Are you easily distracted when someone else is talking? _____


4. Do you quickly begin developing arguments in your mind if someone presents ideas opposite to your beliefs? _____


5. Do you plan what you want to say as someone else speaks so your voice can be heard at the first possible pause? _____


6. Are you uncomfortable with silence when no one speaks for a couple of minutes? _____


7. Do you allow “catch phrases” to destroy your focus? _____


8. Do you mainly listen for facts and jot them down rather than formulating bigger ideas? _____


9. Do you look away from a speaker’s eyes during a conversation? _____


10. Do you listen more easily to recreational topics than ideas that challenge your mind? _____

Eight or more A responses and B responses: you are a good listener, but you can target areas to improve.

Mostly B responses [4-7] with some A responses: you are not truly an active listener and you can benefit at work by rewiring your brain by using new active listening strategies.

Some C [1-3] responses, plus [4-6] B responses: you can benefit by purposefully engaging in active listening on the job beginning today.

What do recent discoveries about the brain reveal about our ability to listen? Our ability to listen well is affected by multi-tasking, distractions, and our ability to construct a “play-back loop” for a message.

According to UCLA psychologist Russell Poldrack, “Tasks that require more attention…will be particularly adversely affected by multi-tasking.”

Insightfully, Poldrack found the brain's hippocampus plays critical roles in processing, storing and recalling information. For the task learned without distraction, the hippocampus was involved. However, for the task learned with the distraction of beeps, the hippocampus was not involved; but the striatum was. The brain’s striatum underlies our ability to learn new skills.

"Multi-tasking makes it more likely you will rely on the striatum to learn," Poldrack said. "Our study indicates that multi-tasking changes the way people learn."

These researchers suggest that you should avoid multi-tasking when trying to learn something new that you hope to remember. Do you sense multitasking affects your attentive listening ability?

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University show that your brain is forced to process messages as you listen which requires much more from your working memory. Ellen Weber describes working memory as, “your mental capacity to hold onto a few different facts while you noodle them to solve a problem or to create something new…”

To scientists' surprise, there were two big differences in brain activity patterns while participants were reading or listening to identical sentences, especially at the level of understanding meaning. During reading, the right-brain was not as active, which opens the possibility that there were differences in the nature of the comprehension you experience in reading versus listening.

Second, while listening was taking place, there was more activation in the left-brain region that usually activates when there is language processing which requires recall. The greater amount of activation in the left brain suggests that there is more language processing and working memory storage in listening comprehension than in reading.

“Because spoken language is so temporary, each sound hanging in the air for a fraction of a second, the brain is forced to immediately process or store the various parts of a spoken sentence in order to be able to mentally glue them back together in a conceptual frame that makes sense… to re-play spoken language, you need a mental play-back loop” according to Marcel Just, Carnegie Mellon psychologist.

Leaders in a boardroom often think fast on their feet, process information and communicate ideas based not only on written reports in a meeting, but even more crucially, their ability to listen actively.

Tips to rewire your brain for active listening:

1. Probe with questions to take speaker "deeper." What are you curious about?


2. Detect tone and purpose. What’s in it for the speaker?


3. Focus on key points so you can repeat them later


4. Jot down key words quickly


5. Wait before judging what speaker says. Consider speaker’s approach first.


6. Read and outline main points from articles with “complex” ideas to learn how to process many-sided issues when you're a listener.


7. Do not be distracted by hot or politically incorrect words


8. Keep your eyes on the speaker as you use a receptive body stance


9. Consider content and not delivery bumbling


10. Mentally summarize and form a picture of the whole


11. Value silence at times

Ready to grow skills for more active listening? How might you be an even better communicator no matter what? I'm working on allowing silence more in conversations. Do you suppose $100,000 is just around the bend?