

Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity and Stifle Your Success - allenp
http://randykepple.com/photoblog/2010/10/8-bad-habits-that-crush-your-creativity-and-stifle-your-success/

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vidar
The first one "1. Creating and evaluating at the same time" is huge, see what
happens in a brainstorming session when someone starts picking apart ideas.
The whole session dies.

There is plenty of time later to shoot down the bad stuff.

~~~
allenp
Yeah I agree, I think it kind of relates to this:
[http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/08/visualizing-creative-
proce...](http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/08/visualizing-creative-process.html)

Where basically if you don't experiment and then cull, you'll end up too
constrained and never find "the good stuff."

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Dove
I clicked through and wound up disappointed. There's merit to the suggestions,
no doubt, but I was hoping for something more like this:

    
    
       1. Consuming stupid entertainment
       2. Staying up too late
       3. Eating crappy food
       4. Not ever getting fresh air
       5. Starving your muse
    
       . . .
    

The self-confidence and intellectual exploration stuff I already know. If I
didn't, I wouldn't be creative in the first place.

~~~
lionhearted
This one stood out to me:

> 5\. Starving your muse

Care to elaborate? Looks like something worth thinking about.

~~~
Dove
I first heard the expression in an article about resolving writer's block [1].
While that particular article is specific to role-playing games, the idea has
more general application and I've heard other writers refer to it.

The basic idea is that you can't always be creating. You're never as original
as you think you are; your output depends on your input. If you are a
storywriter, you need to remember to read for pleasure. Seek new experiences,
consume the things that are innovative or interesting or just plain cool in
your field of choice. If you keep your muse well-fed on interesting ideas,
she'll be ready to provide you with new ideas when you need them.

It applies even in a technical context. Even if you are forced to work in Java
or Ada or on a horrific enterprise application, you _should_ be playing in
Haskell during your free time, reading papers on interesting algorithms, doing
recreational mathematics, that sort of thing. The ideas that will come to you
when facing your work are much improved by play.

My own creativity-killing bad habit is to starve my muse. Either to drown
myself so completely in the act of creation that I run out of ideas, or to
intellectually consume crap rather than good stuff.

[1] <http://www.geocities.com/blackhatmatt/tickling_the_muse.htm>

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edw519
9\. Fatigue

Self-help guru Tony Robbins starts every one of his programs covering diet and
exercise because he has figured out that if you don't feel well, you probably
won't _do_ well.

Of course, I think football coach Vince Lombardi said it best, "Fatigue makes
cowards of us all."

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pasbesoin
Perhaps related: Illness (with effects similar to fatigue, or worse).
Particularly frustrating when it's chronic and without a ready remediation.

I don't mean it as a cop-out. But rather, that if one is experiencing such a
problem, it needs addressing. Overcoming it through sheer willpower makes for
a good TV movie but can be counter-productive when taken on as an objective,
personal measure -- especially when others are echoing Nike's "just do it" in
lieu of actually helping fix the problem.

Lose the slogan, and put getting healthy at the top of the list. If your
medical provider has nothing to offer, keep looking.

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pjscott
Math nitpick: an IQ of 120 is not "just a little above average". It's about
the 90th percentile of IQ scores. (Assuming a normal distribution with a mean
of 100 and standard deviation of 15.)

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japaget
Site appears to be overloaded, Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://randykepple.com/photoblog/2010/10/8-bad-
habits-that-crush-your-creativity-and-stifle-your-success/)

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roc
3, 6 and 5 are all pretty much the same: lack of self-confidence.

4 is very closely related as well.

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jbrennan
Interestingly, most of these tips could apply to dating, as well.

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Oxryly
Good list. I think it'd be hard to overstate the importance of #4. The mind
relentless tries to make sense and rationalize everything around it, whether
in creative work or anywhere else. Unfortunately the world exists in a state
of ambiguity, confusion, and even paradox. Being comfortable moving in that
kind of state will increase your effectiveness in just about every way.

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GFischer
"I once had a client who sold a product by direct mail. His order form broke
every rule in the book. But it worked better than any other order form he had
ever tried."

Seems like he A/B tested to perfection :) (takeaway: try some oddball ideas,
you might be surprised!)

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Dylanlacey
10\. Working somewhere that values looking more then doing. I have never felt
less creative then when wearing a business shirt.

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wanderingman
i think i might be 8 for 8.

~~~
eru
What do you mean?

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veloper
I'm so guilty of #1 haha.

