Do you ever start a new project, look around at your mate­ri­als, and ask your­self: “Where do I begin?” Often, when I start a new Web Site, I can­not decide if I will begin in Pho­to­shop, or if I will begin in Notepad. In either case, when I start my design, I am look­ing at a blank can­vas. When cod­ing Web lan­guage, the blank can­vas is referred to as the DOM. We have all expe­ri­enced this moment. Maybe you are prepar­ing an out­line for a class you are teach­ing, maybe you are writ­ing a let­ter, and maybe you are writ­ing a song. I was read­ing this post from Robert Hod­gin on all man­ner of dis­trac­tions. I must say, this was truly an inspi­ra­tional post. It helped me sim­ply the cre­ative process. Here’s an excerpt:

“I have a hard time get­ting started. Much like I have a hard time com­mit­ting to doing laun­dry. Or cook­ing din­ner. I think about all the steps needed to suc­cess­fully wash clothes or cook a 3-​course meal and I get all flus­tered and the lazy gene kicks in. But if I stop think­ing about all the nec­es­sary steps and just focus on the next log­i­cal step, the chore seems to fin­ish itself.“^[1]

While I think prepa­ra­tion is great, some­times the cre­ative mind needs to stare at a blank can­vas and then just go for it!

While his post was not nec­es­sar­ily catered towards these cre­ative func­tions, I believe that cre­ativ­ity comes from set­ting bound­aries and not over-​thinking it.

I was hav­ing a chat with my friend Jay about his band modal­ity, and we dis­cussed the process of writ­ing a song. “Give your­self 1 hour to write the song”, he said. Oth­er­wise you’ll spend hours tweak­ing it and it won’t sound right.

I believe that cre­ative peo­ples’ cre­ativ­ity comes from their abil­ity to do things dif­fer­ently and with­out guide­lines. If I am going to be suc­cess­ful, I may need to start over. I may need to begin from a sin­gle point in space. Sim­plic­ity is refresh­ing. Over the next while, I will attempt to com­bine many of the strate­gies and tech­ni­cal aspects of suc­cess and show you how it can all begin with a Bang.

Ref­er­ences

1. A Sin­gle Step « all man­ner of distractions

http://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​P​Q​0​o​E​m​u​F​3vQ

Many peo­ple who quit smok­ing are sur­prised by how good they feel!^[1]

They feel in charge^[1]

• They don’t need to smoke
• They don’t have to find places to smoke
• They don’t have to worry about their smoke both­er­ing others

They smell good^[1]

• Their hair, clothes, and breath don’t smell like smoke
• Their cars, homes, and kids don’t smell like smoke
• They can bet­ter smell food and other good smells

They feel more relaxed^[1]

• They don’t have to make sure they always have cigarettes
• They have more money
• They are not as wor­ried about their health

They look and feel bet­ter^[1]

• They feel good about being able to quit
• Their skin looks healthier
• They have more energy when they walk, play with their kids, or do some­thing active

Ref­er­ences

[1] Smoke​free​.gov: Ben­e­fits of Quit­ting