Boil, Brew, Be Done

5 Ways To Be More Productive from Two Red Threads

Use Your Teapot As A Productivity-Boosting Timer. That's the title of a simple, elegant and doable technique just posted at Lifehacker. It could have been titled "Get The Dishwasher Unloaded Before The Toast Pops Up." Got a small job you don't really want to do? Put the kettle on and get cracking. The challenge is to get the job done before the water boils. Then it's done, and so's your tea.

In the studio, I think I'll dial down the heat on my electric kettle so it takes a bit longer to boil for that first cup in the morning. Then, instead of just shifting piles to make room for me to work my creativity warm-ups, I'll try to do a few minutes of real studio housekeeping while the water heats. Think of it as a steamy version of Beat The Clock.

What games do you play to help you get those small jobs done?

Dye Me A River

On a recent visit to see family in Florida, Bill and I had a chance to revisit the Naples Botanical Garden. After a 17-month hiatus, the garden reopened last November and we were excited to see its new features. One of those features topped both of our lists in a game we play while traveling.

You've probably played a similar game: Each "player" is asked to name a favorite place or event, things they would enjoy doing again, things they never want to do again, a favorite meal from the trip -- stuff like that. We always like to find out what the other thought was the biggest surprise of the trip.

We found our surprise in the Brazilian garden, which has as its centerpiece a new water feature. While I was taking pictures of the water lilies, Bill was wondering what made the water so dark. He didn't see anything that would seem to produce a high tannin content in the water, so he asked a docent.

The answer? They put dye in the water to make it dark. But they don't do it for purely aesthetic reasons. They do it to help keep the algae down. A lot of algae makes more work for caretakers and can have an adverse effect on the health of the water plants they want to showcase.

We both chose it as our surprise because it was such an elegant solution to a practical problem, and because it contributes to the aesthetic impact in such a big way. Which goes to show yet again that every problem also presents an opportunity.

I'm pretty sure I can get water that color this summer at my place, but it won't be pretty. I'm planning to ret basswood bark again, and I'll post pictures of the process at Two Red Threads. It's a stinky, messy process (at least the way I do it), and oddly, I really get a kick out of it.

So what's been your biggest surprise this week?

Connections, Constraints and Creativity

A while back I introduced a creativity warm-up exercise called The Dictionary Game, making the point that it's really useful when you're preparing yourself to be conscious of connections. This and other creativity exercises also offer the benefit of imposing some specific constraints. Because, as Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein write in their Psychology Today blog Imagine That:

the creative imagination works best when faced with explicitly understood constraints. 

Over at my other blog, Two Red Threads, I'm posting my first reader challenge based on a suggestion from Daryl Lancaster in a comment on the Dictionary Game post here at Compost And Creativity. You may be wondering, why not host the challenge here? Or maybe you're not wondering, but I've given this a lot of thought and my husband has heard this multiple times so you're up.

Last November, I took an online class through my local technical college called Web 2.0: Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. Best $89 I've spent in a while, and you know I like to get my money's worth. As I worked on one of the first assignments -- to plan a blog and think about what kind of content it would include -- it became clear to me that I could maintain a stronger focus by splitting one idea into two separate but connected blogs. And I think it's working. There have been times when I've asked myself, does this belong at TRT or C&C, and an idea could go either way. But for the most part, self-imposed constraints have made it easier for me to get the job done.

So along with the Gimp Learn-Along, which starts tomorrow, I'm posting the Captcha Challenge over at Two Red Threads. Here at Compost And Creativity, I want to spend some time exploring ideas about the creative process, get some incubation exercises posted, introduce culinary challenges, and share some information on learning styles and teaching techniques. I hope you'll stay tuned here, and join in over at Two Red Threads.

But the question is, how does this work for you? Hit that comment button. I'm listening.