General Tips – Page 72 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

Guest Posting on Butler Library Blog

2014-06-05

Francis from Butler Library Blog gave me the opportunity to write a guest posting about writing with content outlines (using Circus Ponies Notebook as outliner). Highly useful for academic writing, but also applicable to other areas. Link in this posting.
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Why “great” ideas need a reality check

2014-06-04

Argument for the tedious task of learning about the domain you are working in. With a link to a beautiful video that shows what imagination without knowledge can produce: nothing pretty.
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Recommendation: Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld”

2014-06-03

One of the best book series I have ever read -- not only extremely smart and funny, but also eye-opening.
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Standing Desk Finished (more or less)

2014-06-02

Instructions on building a reading desk from cheap IKEA components.
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Book Recommendation: BITE: Recipes for Remarkable Research

2014-05-29

A very good book (cover left) on possible strategies to improve one's research productivity ... and happiness.
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Recommendation Update: Ballet

2014-05-28

I watched a rather experimental ballet performance (and ordered a book during the introduction -- cover left) -- some impressions and recommendations.
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Circus Ponies Notebook 4

2014-05-26

Review of Circus Ponies Notebook, version 4. tl;dr: For me the best app to keep and sort information, esp. for writing. But there is more ...
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With self-reflection, take small doses only.

2014-05-13

When you use your idea infrastructure for the most personal project ever -- improving yourself -- take care not to take in too much too fast.
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Interesting Debate: “The State of Free Speech in America”

2014-04-29

Reference to a very interesting discussion on YouTube about free speech, and a few thoughts on it.
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Change needs experience

2014-04-14

Why old(er) people might have an advantage when it comes to being creative -- if they learn to use it.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.