Tuesday, November 03, 2020

Getting into Flow

The Disney Way


A long time ago Walt Disney wrote about working in different places to do different tasks and jobs. Flow is the ultimate sweet spot for writers and creators everywhere, but it can be elusive and difficult to find. it's actually about feeling energised and focused on the task. It might be about being in your favourite place, the weather outside being sunny, listening to your favourite playlist or having your favourite coffee. When you do manage to get into the zone, it's worth noting what environmental factors helped. 

Apart from the theme parts and the films, Disney was a creative thinker ahead of his time. The
Disney Strategy Template give a great analytic framework [1]. 

Some other useful resources are at: https://www.designorate.com/disneys-creative-strategy/
This site give an overview of contemporary tools that pick up on the themes. 

"In order to prepare the team for Disney’s Creative Strategy; four parts of the room are set for each thinking method. The first part is for dreaming and imagination, the second part is for realists and/or planning, the third part is for critics and the fourth part is for getting the mind outside the thinking flow.

The idea of setting a thinking place for each stage in the method is to prepare the team mind to switch thinking modes from one to another. The place can be a room, open space office or an outdoor garden.

The team gathers with a target to achieve, this target can be a dream to turn into reality, design to visualise, problem to solve or process to improve. However, the history of the Disney’s method qualifies it to fit with creative brainstorming to help turn dreams into applicable projects." [2]

The Un-conference Approach


Another useful concept is that of the "Unconference" there's a great blog to explain it all at: https://20bedfordway.com/news/how-to-run-an-unconference/

"Finding popularity in the Tech sector in the mid-nineties, Unconferences represented a move away from formal conferences with attendees given the freedom to create the event they wanted. There is no pre-planned agenda – instead participants convene sessions on whatever topic they like on the morning of the Unconference, claiming a time slot and location.

"Unconferences make for great events for a number of reasons. Ultimately, they allow attendees to cover a wider range of less common topics and probe difficult, unusual and rapidly changing areas of interest. Unconferences are particularly suited for industries where change is rapid and those where creative thinking is essential. If you work within a sector that is struggling with event attendance and engagement with your events then Unconferences can really shake things up and get people interested again. With larger more traditional conferences, there is pressure to focus on more general and crowd-pulling topics whereas Unconferences allow attendees to go niche and explore what interests them.

Unconferences are also good for the following:

  • Peer-to-peer learning
  • Collaboration
  • Creativity
  • Increased engagement as attendees provide the themes  

Make them aware of the following points to help them prepare:

  • It’s best that each session topic has an angle – one that encourages debate and discussion. Make this clear and also share some tips on running a session prior to the event.
  • Reassure session hosts to not take it personally if no-one attends their session 
  • It’s important that session hosts stick to the timetable and don’t let their sessions over run – remind them to be aware of those waiting for the next session
  • The timetable is likely to change during the day so remind people to keep checking back" [8]


I've used this approach when training Scout Leaders and professionals.

Carl Jungs Creative Process




Even famous writers and professionals like Carl Jung have had to find ways to focus.[4]

"While drawing inspiration from Jung, an obvious question becomes, how do I connect with this kind of depth in the midst of my own too-hectic life?  The good news is, we don’t need a tower to live in for months at a time.  The bad news is we need to unplug every day and tune into activities that nourish the soul; this is often hard arrange.  It takes focus, intention, and experimentation to find those things that centre us and we are drawn to.  Any number possibilities come to mind:
  • “Spend an hour a day in a quiet room by yourself reading old stories that you find nourishing.”  That’s what Joseph Campbell said when Bill Moyers asked this question during the “Power of Myth” interviews.
  • Meditation, of almost any kind.  This my own core practice.  Zen teacher, Cheri Huber said, “If you start by watching your breath for as little as five minutes a day, it can change your life.”
  • Sports that allow one to get in “the zone,” especially walking, running, or bicycling.
  • Keeping a dream notebook.
  • Writing, though I suspect most bloggers will have the same difficulty I have in putting words at the service of psyche – how do I turn off the writing sophistication I’ve worked so hard to gain?  Can I ever truly use words in a “purposeless” manner, allowing them to go where the wish, without thinking, “Gee, this would make a good blog post?” For any chance of success, I need a definite strategy, like writing fast with a roller ball pen in cheap notebooks.
  • Visual arts or crafts.  Training or skill is not required for this kind of work, and in fact, can get in the way.  Those with artistic training may find it useful to paint or draw with the non-dominant hand.  Jung had no formal art training, but his private journal, The Red Book, only recently published, gives an idea of what may emerge if one is determined to honour the psyche." 
            Further detailed information about Jungs archetypes can be found here: 
                                    https://appliedjung.com/jungs-dream-house/


“The fantasies and rituals common to childhood assumed a heightened intensity for [Jung], and they influenced the rest of his life. For example, his adult delight in studying alone in a tower he built for himself at Bollingen on the upper lake of Zurich was anticipated by a childhood ritual in which he kept a carved manikin in a pencil box hidden away on a beam in the vicarage attic. From time to time, he visited the manikin and presented him with scrolls written in a secret language to provide him with a library in the fastness of his attic retreat.”

Stories of deep thinkers who build elaborate work environments to help extract more creativity and quality from their brain, it’s a classic example of the deep life in action.

For more case studies like Jung’s tower, see these two posts, which look at elaborate work spaces designed by J. K. Rowling, Neal Stephenson, Michael Pollan, David McCollough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Hans Zimmer, and Gustav Mahler. 

Some useful thinking from: www.bettermess.com, having read the post I suggest you head over there, no point in me re-writing it all so shared here, with copyright fully acknowledged:[3]
"simple beliefs that have helped to improve my complicated life:These things to be important and attempt share my own experiences at self improvement.a comprehensive look at all of the tools I use in my workflow.
If that’s not enough, here are a few favourites on better ways to get things done:Other Blog writers  Worth Examining
As an extroverted thinker, I depend on the ideas of others to help evolve my own. Here are just a handful of those who inspire me daily with their work, their words and their actions.


Deep Work

Of special note is Cal Newports book Deep Work, really worth reading, or watch a YouTube video about it to glean the essence. Cal picks up on Carl Jungs apporach to creativity. I've studied a lot about Jung in the past especially his personality trait work and the subsequent work by Myers & Briggs (MBTI) I write about that in other posts. 

"The book  Deep Work opens with a story with the story of a stone tower that Carl Jung built on the shores of the upper lake of Zurich, near the small town of Bollingen. Jung would retreat to an inner sanctum inside the tower, modelled after meditation rooms he had seen on a tour of British controlled India, to think deeply about his breakthrough work on psychiatry and the collective unconscious. 
Jung’s Bollingen Tower, as he called it, seemed almost purposefully fantastical, as if Jung was using its form to induce states of deeper creativity." [5]

Anthony Steven’s insightful guide, Jung: A Very Short Introduction, As Stevens explains:
Reference:

[1] https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/disney-creative-strategy/what-is-disney-creative-strategy/

[2] https://www.designorate.com/disneys-creative-strategy/

[3] http://bettermess.com/start-here/

[4] https://thefirstgates.com/2014/01/02/jungs-tower-simplicity-and-the-inner-life/

[5] https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/03/22/carl-jungs-fantastical-retreat/


[8] https://20bedfordway.com/news/how-to-run-an-unconference/







Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)