photo by vaubeh
Everything we absorb is shaped by our context.
When you feel stuck creatively, change your context. It’s the most potent means of shifting your perspective, exploring new angles, and seeing anew.
Change your physical context.
1. Walk away from the computer. If you get jammed while writing a blog post or outlining an essay, get up. Go to the next room, downstairs, or to your front porch. Staring at your computer screen puts you in a certain context with certain expectations — removing yourself from that setting can allow ideas to connect in a different way.
2. Take a walk. If you’re having a hard time finding a fresh approach to a problem, leave your house or office. Being outside and moving around expands your feeling of physical space, allowing your mind to expand in different directions. Of course, if your walk entails going to the mall and being entranced by the 40% off sales, your walk may not turn out to be quite the inspiration you’re seeking.
3. Get a ride on public transportation. Whether you’re riding through asphalt, hilly countryside, or suburban landscape, the contrasting senses of being enclosed in a vehicle and surging forward in open space make for a trancelike absorption of the environment.
4. Travel somewhere you’ve never been. Whether it’s a funky neighborhood in a nearby city or Machu Picchu in Peru, a new environment will spark new lines of thought, and create fresh connections with old ideas.
5. Lie on your back with your head hanging over the edge of your bed. Remember doing headstands when you were little and thinking how cool the world looked upside-down? If you’re nimble enough to do headstands now, go for it. If not, the edge-of-the-bed trick can be a surprisingly effective alternative if you let your vision wander.
Change your mental context.
6. Consume outside your comfort zone. If you normally stimulate ideas by reading articles, look at a photo essay. If you’re a cartoonist, digest the brush strokes of a Renaissance painter. Exploring different genres and media can open ideas for new possibilities in your own area.
7. Shuffle things up. When you’re looking to take a project to a new level, write each of the project’s key ideas or issues on an index card. Lay the cards out on the floor, disregarding the order they were in, and shuffle them around. If you find unusual and new connections between ideas, write them down on new cards.
8. Put aside your mother tongue. If you speak another language, read a few stories or a novel in that language. The more ambitious of you can try writing in that language. Language and our thought processes shape each other, so switching your language inevitably shifts your thinking.
If you don’t speak another language, take steps to learn one. With all the podcasts and websites available, language learning does not have to be a pricey endeavor.
9. Zoom in. I’ve seen snails throughout my whole life, but they were never exactly inspiring. One day, a snail was making its way past the chair I sat in. Since its passage was naturally taking quite a stretch of time, I found myself staring at the snail, my face a mere six inches away. Its movement became captivating as I observed the tiny twists and undulations. Sure, sometimes we need to see the big picture — but the very small picture can be just as valuable.
How do you push past monotony? What angle-shifting methods work for you?
Add your comments below, or click the title of this post if no comment form is visible!
If you enjoy this blog, I invite you to subscribe by e-mail or by RSS reader (links are near the top of the sidebar).
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c6a806e3-10cc-4fb1-bacd-12d0a599e399)
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
You’ve offered some great advice not only to enhance your mind, but your body, too! One context I enjoy is going to a coffee or tea house to write at times. All the different people who go by intrigue me and give me great ideas for something I’m writing.
Robyn McMaster´s last blog post..Falling asleep on the Job – Take a Hike
I used to get out of my surroundings, but when that is impossible, I rearrange my furniture.
TJ Hirst´s last blog post..Learning To Laugh
Putting aside the mother tongue works really well for me, especially since i have no other tongue to converse in. It’s great to rent a foreign language dvd and watch it without the subtitles, and really just listen in, absorbing the beauty of the sound, and realizing how much of communication comes through the facial expressions and the situational context.
Changing up the food I send to my gut can be a great help as well…
How about a nice session of Thai massage or Qigong?
Maybe a short session of meditation helps clearing away the monkey mind and reset our thinking.
Recently I faced severe writing block
I tried to write a book in bottom up style — one complete article at a time and compile them into a book.
It FAILed.
So I change my way of writing my book to top down style
I write quick summary on each chapters and slowly expand them.
I think it helps greatly
Although it’s not perfect, I can see ideas flowing very well
Relax´s last blog post..Using knowledge resource to maximize exam performance
Washing the dishes, vacumning, running and gardening all help kick start new thought process. They are relatively mindless activities, but relaxing. My thoughts are free to simply wander while part of me focuses on the physical action.
I also switch up how I get the creative juices flowing for my short fiction stories. I was using my daughter’s photographs. I’ve switched to something else now. When that gets old, I’ll go back to photographs, or come up with something entirely new.
Urban Panther´s last blog post..Making a bigger contribution
I can also recommend going to a coffee shop to overcome writer’s block. I’ve got a starbuck’s round the corner, and there are so many different people there – tourists, people from offices nearby, that I can get some writing ideas by just watching them or staring into my coffee mug.
Ulla Hennig´s last blog post..Happy New Year!
“Staring at your computer screen puts you in a certain context with certain expectations…” How very true and how hard that hit me when I read it. It took me a very long time to make the transition from my yellow legal pads and gel pens to the computer, and I question many times if that has been beneficial to me or not. I remember times when I was literally driven to write, and in the past few years it has become more of a “task” for me than enjoyment. The fact that it is how I make my living probably has a lot to do with this.
These days, I use 3D modeling and character creation in 3D to remove myself from any hangups or blocks I have. Because it is a visual art, it removes from me the stigma of the written word. I create fantasy creatures for my granddaughters, and have my own little world I can go to when the sledding gets tough. This works for me, and it also gives me the satisfaction of having created something besides imagery for the mind. I find that others who have commented here use a lot of the strategies that I thought were a normal part of life. I come away from this commentary a humbled man…
Peace,
Alden~
Alden Smith´s last blog post..Conversation
Not surprisingly (being her brother), the Urban Panther said exactly what I was going to add, so all I’ll say is “ditto” (why bother repeating the work when someone has already done it so well?).
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome´s last blog post..Learning to Ask for Help: Karen Putz Interview
@ Robyn – The coffee house is a great place — I especially like sitting outdoors at the cafe and watching the other customers as well as passersby.
@ TJ – Wow, that’s a new one for me! Really good physical change.
@ Richard – Absorbing another language’s sounds is a wonderful exercise in expansion… the rhythms, the accompanying body movements, and the interaction are easy to dive into, even if you don’t speak the language.
.
Never thought of food as a way to change my context, but now that you mention it, I do try to change that one all the time
@ Relax – Thai massage really does rejuvenate me… relaxes my mind and allows new thought processes to form. And as you point out, changing your work flow can be really effective.
@ Urban Panther – Definitely agree with you there. When I engage in physical activities — be it vacuuming or hiking — I find my mind relaxes and allows itself to form connections that had seemed so difficult before.
@ Ulla – I’m quite loyal to my afternoon coffee trip too
@ Alden – I try to switch between pen/paper and the computer as often as possible, as I find both have many benefits.
It’s interesting that you mention visual arts, because I recently bought a sketchpad and some pencils so that I can start exercising the visual images in my mind… it’s been a little intimidating, but really quite fun so far
.
@ Alex – The sibling connection permeates even the blogosphere!
Making connections is valuable. Reading books, reading other blogs, reading poetry are all good sources of inspiration. Writers’ block happens, but doesn’t have to continue.
Daisy´s last blog post..Reclaiming the den
@ Daisy – I agree… I think creativity really just comes down to making new connections.
{ 1 trackback }