Daily Habits – Retire*Renew*Reinvent

Ahhh…retirement!

Why this photo? The phone is put aside. Ditto with the remote. But the steaming drink [sniff, sniff…is that a hint of brandy?] is begging for your attention.

Need more affirmation of your downshift? Let’s consult a six-year-old boy [and his tiger].

Want more suggestions?

Check out usnews.com’s The Art of Doing Nothing in Retirement . Warning: While the suggestions are solid, the sensory assault of the ads might be annoying and send you back to the ever-wise Calvin.

To spare you of the onslaught, here are the first three points:

Let go of the guilt.
There will be a period of adjustment.
Welcome the lower stress levels

Guarding your creative time with a single word…

Despite all those little voices inside you telling you otherwise, when it’s time to create, here is that word…

Ryan Holiday, author of Ego Is the Enemy, The Obstacle is the Way, and Stillness is the Key, among others, shares this advice in:

To Everyone Who Asks For ‘Just A Little’ Of Your Time: Here’s What It Costs To Say Yes

You can only hand so many hours of your day over to other people before there is none left. Even if there are some left, you may have lost the clarity, the energy and the capacity to do anything with them.

Read further about how his ‘calendar anorexia’ is the secret to his success.

Retirees: Isn’t a little free time what you aimed for all those years?

I hope you come away with a few ‘aha!’ moments.

Note: I’ve linked to Goodreads quote pages to give you a deeper look at the books. They are not affiliate links.

Note: Yesterday, I wrote about dashing perfectionism from your creative life. As I write this, there is some weird glitch with the font size for the title Ego is the Enemy above and it’s killing me. BUT, get a grip, Tim, just move on and click ‘Publish’…

Draw-Sketch-Doodle

happy scribbled

I’ve been a little lax in sending you resources and my study of Leonardo da Vinci [Yeah, as if he knows anything…] bore out how important sketching, scribbling, etc. was to his process. It was very much his way of thinking and learning. I’m guessing that somewhere in his thousands of notebook pages he also just plain loosened up with his quill pen on paper made from cloth pounded into a pulp.

sketching journaling

So, here are a few links to nudge you toward putting pen/pencil/charcoal/lipstick/crayon to paper…

By the way–this drawing/sketching/doodling thing? Make it just for you.

Check that annoying purveyor-of-resistance, audience-looking-over-your-shoulder master of self-doubt** at the door. And if all you do is a little doodling to loosen up for your next creative project, bravo!

Enjoy and remember, ‘try new’!

**Sunni Brown, author of The Doodle Revolution calls it ‘The Shadow’. Love that term.

Lesson learned. Produce first, then…

write first word cloud

…deal with the annoying stuff.

It’s not easy to crank up the momentum and confidence needed to fill your pages.
After breakfast, I launched into decluttering…even before shaving and cleaning up. Not only did I feel grungy [counterproductive in its own right]

A. I wasn’t writing.
B. I was wasting that precious morning buzz [i.e. creative energy] on sifting through and boxing ‘stuff’.
C. I didn’t crank out that initial ‘first 100 words’ on paper, a practice I started when I homed in on mindfully ‘showing up’ to my creative projects.
D. I was getting annoyed by A. and B and C.

Luckily, choosing to reconnect with a former student and a former teaching colleague, I did get my keyboarding fingers moving and real words [with value, even!] danced across the screen. AND I’ve even resisted the urge to turn on the AFC Championship game.

So, I guess the lesson for today is: Don’t give up hope. You can rise above all kinds of obstacles, even the self-imposed ones, and move forward with your projects.

NOTE: If your word processor offers the ‘Focus’ feature that displays just your text–no distracting menus, programs running in the background–give it a try.

Revisiting [sticking to] ‘try new’

Last fall, I subscribed to the Washington Post’s Bold School email newsletter, aimed toward an audience ‘beyond 50’. Thank you to the Post’s Vicky Fogg for this valuable weekly delivery.

Here is an excerpt from today’s newsletter:

***
“Familiar music can comfort us, while listening or playing unfamiliar music challenges us by forcing our brains to work to make sense of the new sound.”
***

As I write this, I’m listening to a Peter, Paul, and Mary song [Ballad of Spring Hill] I’d never before heard, thanks to a Spotify playlist shared by Vicky. And now, Mama Tried by Merle Haggard and the Strangers…and now, the instrumental On Interstate 15 by Wall of Voodoo. [Had never heard of this group before. I like the sound.]

Interesting stuff.

Keep thinking ‘try new’.

No matter how seemingly insignificant, ‘new’ injects a bit of interest into your day, your way of thinking, your creative process.

A recent example:

Taralli

How to Draw Yourself Out of a Creative Funk–New York Times article

faceless man with cloud over his head

Greetings fellow creators.

The title of this piece says it all.

Author and artist Malaka Gharib shares these tips:

Set an Extremely Tight Deadline She suggests a word count or a time limit.
Take Advantage of How Little Time You Have.
When You Don’t Know Where to Start, Look Around. Okay, go ahead, call it ‘eavesdropping’ or ‘spying’. Hey, no malice intended. You’re just trying to be an artist!
Draw On Your Memories (Or Just Draw Your Memories) Think of how evocative the old family album can be. Tap the power of those photos in your mind.

More creative reinvention tips for July 5

idea-cartoon guy

More suggestions from this list that I’ve shared on my Word Inventions blog .

From Leo Babauta of Zen Habits
[Note: The Zen Habits link alone should carry you through years of creative reinvention.]

Get lots of rest. Overwork kills creativity.
Don’t force it. Relax, play, it will start to flow.
Allow your mind to wander. Allow distractions, when you’re looking for inspiration.

Do you have any tips to share?

A few creative reinvention tips for July 3

I’ve shared selections from this list on my Word Inventions blog .

Let’s see if any of these resonate with you.

From Jody Cleghorn of Write Anything. [This site is now closed, but the content remains online as an archive.]

Make up the rules for what you want to produce.
Try to write every day, even if just for a few minutes. [Substitute ‘paint’, ‘sculpt’, ‘cook’, for ‘write’.]
Work on several projects. This keeps you energized and working creatively even when one project isn’t firing. [Good advice, but I’m guilty of taking this a little too far. Make it manageable.]

More Tips to Fire Up Your Creativity

dog in chair — Image by M S from Pixabay

— Keep a box labeled for each project. Toss everything in the box, and don’t worry about misplacing things or ideas.

from Amy Ng of Pikaland

— Choose just one creative aim for the day. What one creative project can you begin/continue/finish today?

from Dan Goodwin’s Wakeful Ways at A Big Creative Yes

— Think on paper. With a bunch of loose paper, start jotting ideas down. Here are four benefits of writing by hand.

from Jacob Cass at Just Creative Design

201 Tips to Fire Up Your Creativity

face of dog surrounded by colorful variety of arrows

This guest post by Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering can be found at https://writetodone.com

201 Ways to Arouse Your Creativity

She compiled the list from a number of sources. A few favorites below…

from Jacob Cass at Just Creative Designs: “Mindmap. Whether you use key words, images, colours, a hierarchy system, numbers, outlines, circles or random words, mindmapping gets your creative juices flowing.”
from Steve Pavlina: “Architect a worthy challenge. If a task is too easy, you don’t need to be particularly creative, so your creative self will simply say, “You can manage this one without me.”
from Alison Motluk: “Seek out creative company. The best ideas are forged not in moments of solitary genius, but during exchanges with trusted colleagues.” [Note: Austin Kleon calls this creative company a ‘scenius‘.]