Life Without Television

works on the web, dabbles in that other place and blogs about work, design, culture, and leaving television land

Archive for the ‘productivity’ Category

7 questions to stimulate creativity

without comments

When you’re creating something new, something from scratch, it’s sometimes hard to know what direction to go in. I’m definitely the kind of guy who gets stuck for half a day choosing a font for three lines of text. Should that be italic or bold? And so on.

But there are things that I find myself saying (not always aloud) to keep myself from being mediocre. The next time you seem to have everything in place but don’t feel satisfied, try one of these:

  1. It would be amazing if…
  2. What is one step beyond the norm? What is ten steps beyond?
  3. What is the opposite of what everybody else is doing?
  4. What will make people stop and think?
  5. What can I take away? What is barely sufficient?
  6. Where can I exaggerate? How big can I make the focus before it becomes ridiculous?
  7. What if it was ridiculous?

Written by Gavin

June 26, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Posted in productivity

The Basics

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Maybe we should stop focusing on the basics. Everybody does the basics then they add the good stuff later if they have time. Or if they can convince those in charge. Or if it’s within budget.

Maybe we should focus on the good stuff first, then pick up the basics as we go along.

Written by Gavin

June 22, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Posted in productivity