Adding Creativity to your Personal Life
Personally, one of the most influential blog’s is gapingvoid by Hugh Macleod.
1. Add 25% to amount of hours you work every week, and fill them with fun, interesting, useful, stuff. Google allows its employees 20% of their work time to devote to their own personal projects. If your employer won’t allow you to do this, you should unilaterally make the time for yourself, hence the extra 25%. Your peers in the office may think you weird at first, but after a while it’ll start paying off.
You have to know what is out there, playing around on MySpace has actually helped with a few of my ideas along the way…. What other industry rewards you for being a MySpace geek?
2. I had no life in my 20’s. Get used to the same. While my peers were partying or zoning out to TV sitcoms, after work I’d head for the coffee shop or the bar, and crank out cartoons until bedtime. Sure, I must have looked a real lonely ol’ saddo, sitting there doodling away, but at the time I didn’t really care. I enjoyed doing it, plus I knew I was on to something. Besides, the typical twentysomething TV-enhanced nighttime existence didn’t interest me too much. Tis more blessed to make than to consume etc.
This is some great advice… It is actually month six of my year long TV strike (month two for the writer’s strike) and I have learned that there is much more to read, create and play with then old re-runs of Friends.
3. All business is creative, just sometimes it’s hard to see it. And it’s especially hard to see it when you’re leaving the office at the same time as all the other yutzes you work with.
This goes along with number 2, put in the hours…. They will be worth it…….
4. Creative people like other creative people, even if they’re far more senior than you. The great thing about creative people with power and money, is that they would much rather have somebody working for them who reminds them of themselves when they, too were young, rather than remind them of the jocks and cheerleaders they went to highschool with. And you know what? Finding those kind of young people is actually harder than it seems. Truly bright sparks who are honest, reliable and hard-working are rare, even in the younger cohorts. So if you ever meet an older “Creative” like that, don’t be scared of her. Don’t be scared to seek her out. She’s probably just as delighted to have found someone she can give a real opportunity to, as you are for finding someone offering a real opportunity.
This describes my boss, Cheryl
5. P.S. When I use the word “creative”, I prefer to use it in quotation marks, metaphorical or otherwise. As words go, it’s pretty meaningless. There are a lot of people in the “creative” industries who wouldn’t know an original idea if it jumped on their lap and peed on them. Aimee Plumley was right. Hipsters ARE annoying. Truly creative people tend to defy the usual stereotypes. Always keep that in mind.
6. Never, ever forget the “Sex & Cash Theory”. The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the assignment covers both bases, but not often.
Our CDB campaigns vs. HP direct mail
7. Always remember: You’re playing the long game. General Kutuzov told the Russian Royal Court that all he needed to defeat Napoleon was “patience and time”. His approach horrified a lot of people close to the Czar, who were hoping for something a bit more swift and glorious. But it was “patience and time” that allowed the good ol’ Russian winter to come along, and freeze all those poor Frenchman to death. The rest is history.
Great advice…….
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