Many times I have found a creative barrier simply due to lack of time. It’s tough to think “outside the box” when you’re crammed smack dab in the middle of it. That’s what I’ve fondly labeled the “tyranny of the urgent.” Tyranny of the urgent means that what gets done is what’s pressing at the time – no time for creativity; only time for action.

Seth Godin nails it in this post. I encourage you to take 60 seconds to read it. Here’s my favorite quote:

Add up enough urgencies and you don’t get a fire, you get a career. A career putting out fires never leads to the goal you had in mind all along.

I guess the trick is to make the long term items even more urgent than today’s emergencies.

Sometimes creativity turns into an emergency. But even the worst of emergencies still needs a doctor and time to heal.

My wife sent me this link yesterday.

While I consider myself an eternal optimist, there are days when I feel like my creativity is non-existent. That’s not a good thing if your job depends on it!

I love the viewpoint brought out in the article – sometimes we need to be drained creatively. There are many times that God wants us at the bottom to remind us how good we have it at the top (not to mention all the time in between). It’s in those times that our creativity is renewed. The amazing thing is that we surpass the barriers that restricted us in the first place – barriers that would never have been broken otherwise.

I’ll be blogging about creative strategies and what has worked for me in the past and present.

As for the future, what inspires you? What raises your creativity level?

Let’s get the discussion rolling…

Music to my ears:

“IBM Thursday disclosed that 100 of its researchers are giving Apple Macintosh computers a go to find out whether they are a strong option for use in the workplace.”

The Catalyst Website is now live! Stop whatever you’re doing and go check out this site. If there is one conference I would recommend (and there are lots of GREAT ones) – this would be it.

Go. Now.

Okay…an interesting thing happened this afternoon.

Our youngest daughter, Emilee, was scheduled for Kindergarten screening today. A most important day in the life of any five year old. She was pumped, and I have to admit, I was excited for her as she is ready to enter another chapter in her book of life.

Everything sounds normal, right?

They changed the venue this year for the screenings, moving them to a local church (I won’t mention any names, except to say it wasn’t Meadow Heights). Everything was going smoothly – Emilee was with someone going over her motor skills, verbal skills and the like (which, I might add as a proud father, she scored extremely well on!) while her mother and I were sitting by ourselves at a round table filling out an endless supply of paperwork.

Here’s where things get interesting…

In the “multi-purpose” room in this church were several school employees, a few parents with their kids and my wife and I. I didn’t really notice at first, but they had some music playing through the overhead speakers in the ceiling (you know, those really crappy, minuscule speakers that some local chop shop must have recommended). For some reason the style of choice today was country (go figure).

Now I don’t listen to any country music, but I did happen to recognize the song that started blaring over those inadequate speakers. I don’t know if it was a sign from God or Satan having some fun, but Hank Williams Jr’s hit song from the eighties, “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” soon filled the air and I had to smile (strike that, I chuckled out loud) at the irony of that particular song, in that particular place at that very particular time.

I appreciate a good laugh…

And today…

Today, I wasn’t disappointed.