31 Jan Get happy with these 10 creative rituals!
by Sean Blanda from 99U
Benjamin Franklin made sure to end every day by asking “What good have I done today?” Maya Angelou only wrote in tiny hotel rooms. Jack Kerouac made sure to touch the ground nine times before writing.
Sustained creativity doesn’t come from a flash of brilliance or a single afternoon of inspiration. It comes from a consistent routine that serves as the bedrock for getting things done. At 99U we’ve spoken with dozens of entrepreneurs, researchers, and creatives about their unique routines. Below are some of our favorites.
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1. Take a Quarterly Vacation
Venture capitalist Brad Feld takes a week off every three months:
The most impactful thing I’ve done is to take a week off the grid every quarter. [My wife] Amy and I head to the airport on Saturday to go somewhere. I leave my computer at home and give her my smart phone at the airport. She gives it back to me the following Saturday when we return home. We always go somewhere – usually a relaxing place, but it’s always a trip rather than a staycation. I then spend 100 percent of my time relaxing and being with Amy. I usually read a book a day on these trips, we talk a lot, have plenty of adult entertainment, and sleep late every day. Whenever I return, I’m always refreshed.
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2. Hold a “Retrospective” After Projects
Former Obama campaign CTO Harper Reed the importance of the daily “retrospective”:
[The presidential campaign] had a really good team dynamic that relied quite a bit on the “retrospective” meeting at the end of a project that allowed us to stop and say: “What was it like to launch? What did we do right? What did we do wrong?”
Since we were practicing kind of a startup ethos of iterative development, we could usually see immediately what went wrong and what was right, and it was incredibly valuable. Just being aware of how things are going, and talking about it quickly, I think is incredibly important.
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People forget to acknowledge, that especially in technology, work kind of hurts. People have feelings and it is important to talk about those feelings and address them. If you’re in a room and you say, “Okay, we launched today. How do you feel about that?” Then your team says, “I did not like it when this happened. I struggled with it and I was little bit unhappy that we put down this task, but I was super excited about this.” We just had a conversation, a real conversation, about real feelings.
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3. Write Every Day
Best-selling author Cheryl Strayed on the importance of writing daily:
I often recommend writing as a tool for self-discovery because it’s helped me so much. I use writing in different ways: I write as an artist but I also write when I’m just trying to work through something or make a tough decision. And I think, a lot of times, even people who aren’t writers will write in crisis. They’ll write in their journals after breaking up with someone, even though they haven’t written for two years. That’s because it’s a way to essentially practice your thoughts and see what’s there. Writing forces you to locate your clarity…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE