Do you have dozens of ideas that are percolating in your mind? Do you have multiple journals and notes written all over the house? Do you get inspired to create, and then have difficulty following through? Perhaps you are a Random Mind Type.
There are linear thinkers, and then there are the High Creatives. Creative people are rarely linear, or sequential, in the way they think and engage in the world. This randomness of thought and action can be extremely frustrating in many ways, both for the creative person and all those who work with them. In graduate school I had the chance to take the Gregorc Mind Styles Assessment. It was created by the psychologist Anthony Gregorc and describes four cognitive styles for perceiving and processing the information we engage in the world around us. Not surprisingly, I was highly Random. www.anthonyfgregorc.com/ Randomness has an advantage in that it is responsive to moment to moment insights. I don't get stuck on a single process to follow. This openness allows inspiration to come at any time. Randomness has its disadvantage in that it can leap around so much that one never finishes a project, or even a thought. So how can a High Creative deal with this randomness? My solution is to anchor down ideas the moment they come into being. All you need is a place to anchor those ideas in place. Preferably a public forum. This will ensure your idea does not get lost. So, why not start a blog or two (or three). When an idea enters, you can simply write it down in your blog. Anchoring in those fleeting ideas, at first with just a little bit of inspired thinking, can help to build something meaningful. You don't have to sit down and write a book one chapter at a time. You can simply start sharing ideas on a topic in a selected forum. Instead of sharing all your ideas in one spot, because of their randomness it might confuse those non-linear types, why not have several blogs you are working on at once. When and idea comes "randomly", you can ask, which forum is most appropriate for this particular idea? In my experience, even though my thoughts extend across many different domains, they tend to fall into only about five categories. When any idea comes, I can usually find that it fits somewhere in one of my five different websites. If not, maybe you can just start one more? What does it hurt? These things are free to all who want to learn how to use them. Anchoring in our ideas helps us to build something meaningful in our lives. Instead of feeling chaotic and lost in a sea of possibility, I can now see the possibility turned into a meaningful piece of work. Perhaps, when I am ready, I can take my blog posts and turn them into a book? Who knows. But the ideas are no longer lost amongst a sea of papers. So ships ahoy! Go ahead and sail on the sea of ideas, but don't forget to drop the anchor when you get to an interesting port!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Abigail LarrisonEducator, Scientist and Art Maker. The purpose of all life is to spread joy. What brings more joy than making art? Archives
November 2023
|