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if I put the work in before going to bed, I often had a little creative idea overnight,
my unconscious was working on stuff all the time, without my being consciously aware of it.
the language of the unconscious is not verbal.
there were only two differences between the creative and the uncreative architects. The first was that the creative architects knew how to play. The second was that the creative architects always deferred making decisions for as long as they were allowed.
creative people are much better at tolerating the vague sense of worry that we all get when we leave something unresolved.
The greatest killer of creativity is interruption. It pulls your mind away from what you want to be thinking about. Research has shown that, after an interruption, it can take eight minutes for you to return to your previous state of consciousness, and up to twenty minutes to get back into a state of deep focus.
When you’re being creative there is no such thing as a mistake.
You create boundaries of space to stop others interrupting you.
You create boundaries of time, by arranging, for a specific period, to preserve your boundaries of space.
the longer you sit there, the more your mind slows and calms down and settles.
When we’re trying to be creative, there’s a real lack of clarity during most of the process.
much of our “Tortoise Mind” work takes place in an atmosphere of uncertainty and gentle confusion.
when you first have a new idea, you don’t get critical too soon.
learning from something or someone you admire is not stealing. It’s called “being influenced by.”
experience can be more vivid when it’s not dulled by familiarity.
It seems that it’s rare for someone creative to maintain a constant high level of freshness.
Playing…keeps you “fresh.”
We came to understand that the blockages weren’t an interruption in the process, they were part of it.
the panic will help you get down to the job.
But at the end of the day, you and only you must decide which criticisms and suggestions you accept.
