Creativity Exercise For 2 Weeks

Hi all, Here is the creativity exercise for 2 weeks. Please read it and put it into practice.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art15403.asp

Creativity overhaul - incorporate creativity in your daily routine

It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut, especially if your daily life has some complexity to it, such as juggling a career and home life and/or having to organise children as well as yourself. In many ways, keeping a tight hold on your routine can make the difference between getting everything done or dropping some of those balls you have in the air.

Inevitably, creativity is something we think we have to make time for, and have to have energy for. As our lives become busier and busier, we find ourselves looking at the unfinished painting in the corner and saying, “No time for that today.” All too often six months, or a year, can slip by like that, and our creativity curls up inside us into a tiny injured ball.

Try a two week creativity overhaul. Choose a different part of your daily routine to alter for one day. If you like the changes, keep them. If not, revert to your normal routine the next day, and try the next change in the queue. If changes like this don’t fit in to your week day, use the weekends instead over 7 weeks, or save them for a holiday. Or select one or two changes that appeal to you (or scare you!) and try them over a week or two. This article features the overhaul for Days 1 to 6. Click here for Creativity Overhaul Week 2.(http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art15403.asp)

Day 1. Waking up If you wake to an alarm, try a more gentle approach. Place the alarm in a drawer where the sound is softer but you have to get up to turn it off. Or use a timed radio or music system set to a gentle music station or CD. Stretch to wake up your muscles gently. If your usual waking system is slow and sluggish, try coaxing yourself into sitting up immediately and doing something, like a sketch, some freewriting (perhaps record a dream if you remember it), humming a song.

Day 2. Getting up If your routine is one of get up and go the moment the alarm goes off, slow down today. Stretch first. Bribe someone into bringing you a hot cup of something in bed. Roll out of bed and do some gentle yoga stretches.If your start is slow, try to get yourself moving more quickly today. While leaping out of bed is supposed to be too strenuous first thing in the morning, try some gentle dance moves as you get yourself ready for the day. Notice the feeling of your movements and your mood.

Day 3. Your attitude to your bodyToday, try to think of your body purely in terms of its function – instead of wobbly thighs, appreciate your ability to walk, and experience each movement of your muscles as they interact with each other and move your body around. Don’t judge any of your functions as faulty (perhaps, say, you’re hard of hearing) – instead state it in terms of what you can hear, see, and do, or in terms of your other, more heightened, senses.

Day 4. Changing your routinesWake up your mind by challenging it to keep up with a sudden change in routine. Routines are good for us, because they clear the way for more important things to take precedence in our lives, but once in a while it’s good to throw your mind a little curve ball to keep it sharp. Get dressed and eat breakfast in a different order. Drive a different route to work. Stop at the park on your way home for a walk.

Day 5. Nourishing your bodyIf you prepare the meals in your household, today is creative cooking day. What different tastes can you put together? What food items do you never buy because you have no idea what they taste like or how to cook them? Try something new today. If you don't cook, perhaps today's your day to give it a go!

Day 6. OrganisationAre you organised or disorganised? Be the opposite today. This doesn’t mean you have to tidy your entire office if you’re usually a clutter-bug. Instead, deal creatively with whatever comes across your desk – no setting it aside unless you have a folder for “pending”. Or, if you’re usually super-structured, let it all go today. No tidying. If you dare, try to extend this to organisation of people and other elements of your day. What happens if you let the kids sort themselves out? Can you have fun if you leave the shopping list behind and go to an unfamiliar store? Or if your shopping run is usually chaotic, today’s the day to sit down and make a comprehensive list.

Day 7. WorkWhat is your attitude to work? If you love your job or get fulfilment from it you probably don’t need to find anything to change about it. But if it’s a daily drag, try to approach it differently for today. Is there any part of your job that allows you to be creative? Do you try to get through your day mindlessly because the work is dull? Or is your job so stressful and hectic that you don’t have time to think? Take a mental step back, and observe your work as neutrally as you can. How would your job look to a stranger?

Day 8. HouseworkPerhaps the housework is the work part of your day. If so, you have a day off – or you can double up on one of the days that really intrigues you.What does your housework routine look like? Regimental? Nicely structured? Not too bad? Or utter chaos? If you’re on the opposite ends, try to switch today. If you’re in the middle, choose some of the aspects of the tasks that you’re not happy with and, depending on what you want to accomplish, either use this day to reorganise yourself better, or let go of the need to have things perfectly under control.While you’re doing your housework, observe your attitude to it. If you’re cursing it as a chore and a nuisance, try to stop your thoughts and focus instead on textures (fabric, carpet), movement (your hands, the vacuum cleaner), colours (in soap bubbles especially), and sound variations (the machines that make your chores quicker).

Day 9. ExerciseTry something you’ve never tried before, or go back to something you started but didn’t have time to continue. Look for opportunities to take a trial class in something like latin dancing, bellydancing, yoga, aqua-aerobics.

Day 10. Relating to peopleDo you notice the people you live with? Or do you pass each other by in the exhaustive busyness of your day? Make a point of noticing and observing every person who enters your day today. If a friend or family member enters the room or calls you, what are your first feelings? Are these feelings you’re usually aware of? What aspect do you notice first about strangers? Do you focus on the same thing (eg, their eyes or hair) with everybody, or are you drawn to attractive features or “flaws” first?

Day 11. Creative expressionWhat have you had standing in the corner, or stuffed in the basement, waiting for a rainy day when you have a chance to start it, or complete it? Today’s the day. What can you juggle to find an hour to use for your own creativity?

Day 12. Relaxation and entertainmentDo you usually veg out in front of the television? Tonight try something different to relax – meditation, singing, yoga, reading, listening to music, or playing an instrument. Perhaps you want to keep going with the creative project you started yesterday…

Day 13. SleepAre you still stressed from your day when you try to get ready for bed? Do you crawl into bed way too late for the time you have to get up the next day? Or are you falling asleep on the sofa before it’s anywhere near bed time? Do you battle to fall asleep?If you’re having trouble with any part of your sleeping routine, it can’t hurt to try something else tonight. Go to bed later or earlier than usual. Read in bed if you don’t usually, or listen to music as you drift off. If you wake during the night, try that trick the sleep experts always tell us: get up and go and do something else until you’re sleepy again. Before you drift off, prepare for tomorrow’s exercise. Place a notebook and pen next to your bed, and tell yourself that you want to remember your dreams and write them down when you wake.

Day 14. DreamsDo you remember your dreams? Try to wake up this morning and record any dreams you were having just before you woke. Don’t remember anything? How about the thoughts you were having as you were drifting off last night?If you strike a blank with night time dreams, create a day dreaming session today. Find a quiet time and space and make yourself comfortable. Let your mind drift and wander into a day dream. Afterwards, record it if you want to, either in words or drawings or paintings – or alternatively, meditate on your day dream gently for a while instead.

Just read this exercise. Seems will start from D3 directly.

2010GA Tian Liqing

The article is funny!
Change your daily action method,maybe you will find the real life your want.

Seems I have got used to complaining that life is routine. But here this article catches my eyes and makes me think differently.

Imagine some changes about the surrounding around us, why not do some changes of ourselves. Like the way to get up every morning, the habbit to have a coffee during noon time.

Believe with so many changes, like would be fantastic. Even we can not keep on changing for a long time, a day is also enough to be happy. Maybe there are something unpredicted occur.

Try and keep going.
Excited to see the difference

Funny, Let me try and let you guys know if it works.

it's really hard to change the routine actually. For me, insonmia is so serious,... i try to read book if i wake at night, the result should have more boring and energy. i guess this method DON'T suitable to me, but i can try that

After finish reading the exercise , it 's too hard to follow it.
Maybe some habits are suitable for western life.
We have heavy pression to endure and long working time ro perform.
Everytime when i go to bed , i will go in deep sleep asap . Every morning i need two alarms to get up. ( one clock and one cell phone ).If i follow the exercise and take off the alarm clock , maybe i wil be late , then fired by my company , haha.
So i will try if i have oppotunity.

frankly speaking, i don't like to follow my daily routine, but it is very hard to make some big changes. what i do is full of risk and challenge. the pressure make me feeling very tired after a whole day work. in the workdays, i am lack of energy to make changes of my daily routine, although i want to do so. in the weekend, i prefer to try something different and the little change really make me feel happy. i'm sure it will works if you follow the schedule established in the article.

It's funny that I find many chinese people like to deny themselves before there is any action. seems a kind of lack confidence.

sounds interesting!
try to be creative in every moment

it's interesting. hehe.

What a fantastic idea! I never thought to change our custom, actually, these suggestions give us a whole new conception of observing life or world from a different way, it is something like brain exercise, and it is also a good training. I will apply this idea into my future life.



10GA GARY

I read through the exercises and got the idea that all those mentioned above are saying one thing: do things other way. Creativitiy is out of doing-things other way. "Think outside the box" holds the similar idea. Put it differently, routines just stop us from being creative. (Am I exercising now?)

The key point of the article is just change your previous ways of living and thinking, then you will find some thing different happened around you.That is a good try. My personal experience is taking 10-20 minutes as pure thinking time per day off chaos is important in terms of managing time. I mean it is better than just doing and doing again and again , no thinking at all.

Creativity represents something different from routine. The reason we promote creativity is that it encourages people to think outside a box and bring a kind of possibility for us to make progress.Of course, creativity and innovation are good. However,only different things that lead good trends can be a kind of creativity. If it leads bad trends, it is not a creativity, but a backward.Therefore, when we do creativity, we should be self-confident that such change may make things better. The relation is "different, better, creative".

by 10GA Wu Xiaoli 2010962385

My understanding about this exercise is to do different and to feel what's the changes in your routine life, and how your mindset limited your creativities. If you used to have a cup of coffee in the morning, suggest to try water or tea. Any changes in any time will be OK for this exercise.

2010 GA Caijing

Creativity sounds like a big word. When we try to be creative, sometimes, we do not know where to put our hands on. These excercises provide us with a good starting point. Just make a little bit change from small things, then you could be get used to changing for good.

that' great!let me try.But I think it will require stamina to persevere...


WANGCHUN-GA

an interesting topic, but stick to the reality first.

when you are in a rush to be on time at work, would you have time to change your daliy routine from the moment you wake up till arrive at work? When you need to submit your report(s) at a certain time, would you have time to think and to make a difference based on the previous routine? maybe you could, but is it the thing that your boss wants from you?

"Creative exercises for 2 weeks" good suggestion for "not-too-busy" bees. i may try it for one week during the national holiday, which is coming soon. it may help for my further lifestyle.

I've seen lots of people would love to have a try regarding this exercises, as well as to myself. Thus, Sharing wanted : anyone could share its result after trial?

Really Amazing articles. Change your habits from small things, and you will find your life is unique day by day.

This is a good article. Because of the busy morden life, we are too busy to think about change ourselves or to oberve our environment. We always have excuses for not changing such as I have no time to think that way, I'm too tired to consider so many things, or I'm not interested in this area. Acturally, usually after some people try a new way of life and get accustomed to it, the new way seems not such bad as they thought. The point is that we need force ourselves to go the first step.

Routines make us feel comfortable and relatively easy to manage, so we are getting use to make things around us into some form of routines. I don't think it's a bad thing. Actrually practice makes perfect. Most of time, we can perfect our skills or improve effeciency through repeating our routines.

But when we need to bring out the creatibility, we have to break some of the routines which we usually feel safe with. Need to be bold enough to face the un-knowns and try something "unpredictable". Since every single one of us is just one "patern" of the universe, we need to be open-minded enough to observe and understand those things we might not do in our own daily life, but will stimulate idea development from other dimensions.

I am a very organized person, very! Might try be messy in the coming week. Bear with it

It looks very interesting