Creative Space

Your working environment and surroundings are far more important than people realise when working on creative projects. Process jobs like administration, manual labour and accounting can be done anywhere within reason but to be able to think of ideas, write, draw or design, the surroundings become an extention of you and you part of them.

If you find you have 'writer's block', feel distracted or uninspired it's often because your surroundings are relating to you in the wrong way. The wrong sort of noise, mess, dirt and clutter outside you become refelected in your creative mind which then can't perform.

Before starting on a project or creative session, tidy up everything that does not relate to the task in hand. It's fine to have mess and clutter that is diretly related to the project, but everything else must go. You need to create outside you the space you want reflected inside your mind. A tidy desk and office gives you space inside to think and breathe. Being surrounded by things, sounds, smells and people that inspire you will make massive changes to your creative productivity.

Try this tip: get everything off your desk - yes I mean everything. Put it all in boxes or folders, neatly out of sight. Wipe the desk down. Then put back only the things you need to work on during the next two hours. Leave everything else packed away. See how you get on.

Last month I spoke at the launch of the Portfolio Innovation Centre in Northampton. It's a centre for small creative businesses to supply them with the right creative space to live and breath their craft. If you're in that area, contact Wendy on 01604 779000 and take a look. The event was a great success, organised by Enthuse PR who specialise in organising PR for businesses who want tangible results. Contact Rachel on 01933 666091. You can read the press story about the event here.

Photo: Louise O'Callaghan

If you want something entertaining, motivational, unusual and highly relevant in today's climate for your conference or company training have a look at a clip here and visit my keynote page here.
Click here to read more about creativity.
Click here to read articles on creativity, design and branding.
www.aydinstone.com

On the radio

I was interviewed on the radio this week, and not on my usual topic. The programme was on BBC Radio Suffolk and the theme was if you knew your friend or family member was being cheated on by their partner, would you tell them? Should you tell them? I put the case that you should and that the truth is important. (If it was you being cheated on, wouldn't you want to know?).

The reason I was involved was because I'd written a book called 'How to Survive Infidelity'. The interview was done over the phone, live. I drew upon what little I knew from previous radio interviews and my limited media training; have a single point you want to get across and no matter what questions are asked, make sure you get that point over. I've learnt from experience that if you wait for them to ask you the golden question that allows you to get your message out there, you'll be disappointed by the end which comes all too quickly. Instead, interviewers usually ask questions that take your further away from what you'd like to talk about.

My message was that I'd written the book and it helped people survive infidelity. I managed to squeeze in the website address. So how did I do, talking about a topic I don't really talk about, live and with little idea the direction of the interviewer? You can listen yourself here.

The book by the way is available as a download, here. If you're planning to use the media, consider some advice from the experts. Have a look at what Alan Steven's got to offer.

How to Survive and Thrive in Difficult Times

In difficult times the creativity of you and your team, can be your biggest asset. Following on from my article last month on why there has never been a better time to do buisiness than right now, I've teamed up with Business Link to create a half-day workshop on how we can kick-start our creativity and use it to innovate and troublehsoot our businesses for hidden profit.

This interactive workshop will help you focus on your product or service in a different and more creative way. It will help you improve your offer and in doing so increase sales and profit. You will spend time on your business and work on action points that you can implement after the workshop.

We'll be looking at how to be more creative in problem solving, how to increase in sales and save costs, how small changes can have a dramatic effect as well as looking at how your brand values and marketing messages work in the minds of your potential customers.

It'll be thought proving and fun and you'll leave with a set of creative tools and ideas you may not have come across before.

The workshops are FREE (bookings need to be made in advance)

8th October, 8:30am - 12:30pm at National Badminton Centre, Bradwell Road, Loughton Lodge, MILTON KEYNES, Buckinghamshire, MK8 9LA

12th November, 8:30am - 12:30pm at The Oxford Centre, 333 Banbury Road, OXFORD, Oxfordshire, OX2 7PL

To see more details and sign up click here.

If you want something entertaining, motivational, unusual and highly relevant in today's climate for your conference or company training have a look at a clip here and visit my keynote page here.
Click here to read more about creativity.
Click here to read articles on creativity, design and branding.
www.aydinstone.com