WTF Almost Two Years!

Sad but true it has been a long time since my last post. I never achieved the fitness goals I set out but learned some valuable lessons. Goals are important, but become useless when writing is an end in and of itself. Action is a much better indicator of success because it shows immediate results. Sometimes doing something based on instinct is just as valid as a planned attempt.

So what is the latest Mental Beat?

Do something immediately to see how it will work for you. Build a plan out of the natural process of doing that action. The plan will be organic and thus better suited to your work flow, style, and preferences.

Planning something in advance is OK if the plan is short. Long estimates are best avoided or broken into short lists of tasks completed within a foreseeable time, like a week or two. Work days are best divided into production and administration.

Production is any work on principal projects or billable time.

Administration is everything else.

Don't Forget the Good Stuff.

It is said that creative thinking is one part inspiration to ninety-nine parts perspiration. The bulk is the process. The rest are serendipity. However when applied to a group the perspiration per person decreases while the inspiration increases.

So in theory, a team of four might look like this:

• i=4
• p=24

This is an oversimplification, however it illustrates how a group working on a shared goal can increase the chance for serendipity to occur.
How to apply this to your team project?

1. Communicate often.
   The more conversations on and about the goal positions the mind to make a map and thus connections.
2. Meet outside the workplace.
   Meals, drinks, events, etc. are great "Roads Not Taken" and are tangental by nature.
3. Record communication.
   All the conversations you have will hold value only when they are jotted down. Don't forget the good stuff.
4. Review
   Talk about previous conversations and refer to your notes to ensure clarity.
5. Paraphrase
   Its not enough to listen-active participation helps dissolve assumptions.

Enjoy!

Matthew, MB

Wisebread Writer's Wisdom: How to be an Expert

This is a great article by Philip Brewer on Wisebread.com. He distills the essence of becoming an expert in any subject into four steps. Mind you they are four difficult steps, but albeit achievable.

Enjoy this snippet:

Deliberate practice

Deliberate practice is just this:

1. performing your skill (or, more typically, a piece of it)
2. monitoring your performance
3. evaluating your success
4. figuring out how to do it better

and then repeating that sequence again and again.

That's it. That's how to become an expert. Most experts have done just that, for hours a day, for years.

Full Article

Yet Another Foiled Attempt

How many times have you failed? How many more can you fail? As Anthony Robbins asked, "how many attempts do parents allow their newborns to try to walk before throwing in the towel?"
Sounds profound, but in all sincerity failing is learning. Learning to fail is learning what not to do.

The important thing to learn about learning to fail is not failing to learn the lesson.


At the end of a project having time set aside to review what happened to a great habit to get into. The value in allocating this time is definitely Quadrant 2 in the Steven Covey time matrix and in a busy business environment, many times the last thing people want to do at the end of a project is to get together and talk about it.

But make the time to talk about it. The last thing needed is repeated wasted effort. Innovation cannot take place when there are bad habits fossilized. The habits need to be rooted and new systems installed.

Again, easier said ...

However, just like the baby learning to walk it takes baby steps. Giving up is not an option, failing is not negative unless we don't learn from the failure. Try taking some small steps and not worry about falling. It's liberating.

Thanks!

Matthew, MB

Beat your Mental.

The Elegant K I S S

My junior high school art teacher was a funny man. I could tell you many jokes he told us, but I'd rather remember him for his rules of simplicity in design rather than his sailor mouth.


He introduced us to the KISS rule. His version was Keep It Simple Stupid! Sure it was negative, but that didn't keep Walter Matthau from bossing The Bad News Bears into a winning season.

I digress.

The KISS rule works if all you want to do is simplify. However, in complex situations does this rule still work?

In trying to achieve simple solutions to complex issues the wave of mutilation must first be surfed. The process of learning all that can be learned about a problem will ideally result in the satori of solutions, the elegant solution.


This effortless outcome that seems so obvious it is not even dared questioned.

When this idea falls in line with things that contain beauty with simplicity and functionality coupled with harmony, this is the frame work for ideal idea generation.

More on this later.

Beat your mental!


Matthew, MB

10 Things you can do to be more creative

We all have trouble sometimes getting started or getting out of bed. Well here are a few tips on how you can get the creative fluids flowing more frequently and faster.

1. Early morning automatic writing.　First thing in the morning, get out a pen and notebook and just start writing. This tip was inspired by Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.
2. Do something different every day. For example if you always take the same route home from work, try a different way. Even better, try a new way home and get lost.
3. Exercise regularly. Nothing inspires inspiration than perspiration.
4. Get enough sleep. This is different for everyone but it is said that eight hours is a good benchmark.
5. Surround yourself with things of inspiration such as images, magazines, objects, animals, and yes, people. Think immersion.
   
6. Learn to mind map. I think creating a schematic from your mind on paper is a magical endeavor guaranteed to jog your creativity. Recently I began using FreeMind - a free mind mapping utility. It's open source, so it's free and it's Java based so its multi-platform friendly.
7. Learn to collect your ideas. Ideas can pop up at odd times. Have a system to collect these ideas. David Allen's Getting Things Done is a great book on the subject. There are plenty of GTD evangelists out there if you want a second opinion.
8. Find your power points. These can be places in your home that seem more conducive for creativity or it could be a coffee shop with a nice view of a lake. Whatever it is, you know it when you find.
9. Take a class at a community college or equivalent. Challenging your mind to new things in new environments is always a way to gain some creativity points.
10. Travel. This doesn't mean down the block. It means to slide to some place outside of your comfort zone. An unknown location (for you). Exploration is key in stirring up some of the old creative juices.

Please feel free to share your ideas on how to cultivate your creativity.

Thanks and Beat your Mental!

Matthew, MB