Writing – Page 19 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

Workshop: Scientific Work — Writing #2 Knowing What To Write

2013-06-12

It's easy to get stuck when you want to write, usually because the structure is not clear. You do not know what you want to write (otherwise you'd do it, wouldn't you?). Here's a way to get past that barrier.
[show the article]

Workshop: Scientific Work — Writing #1 Getting Down to Write

2013-06-10

How do you get your ass in the chair (or where ever you write) and make it a habit? Some suggestions for starting a wonderfully excruciating journey.
[show the article]

Workshop: Scientific Work — Ideas

2013-06-03

Scientific work needs ideas, but you cannot force them. Instead, prepare for them. Some suggestions, including when you have an idea but it does not fit.
[show the article]

Getting Microsoft Word’s Old Menu Bar Back

2013-05-15

Don't you just hate the menu band of Microsoft Word? Well, there's an easy way to remove it -- and get that old trusty menu bar back. It's still like getting a nice instrument panel of a death trap, but hey, better than one that continuously mocks you.
[show the article]

Let’s Nuke These Scraper Sites

2013-05-13

Some sites steal postings from blogs, often automatically. Some way to protect yourself from these pests.
[show the article]

Lousy Form, Perfect Form, or: Why learning something late in life isn’t that bad.

2013-04-22

There's no need to feel stupid if you did something in an unnecessarily complicated way. Here's why.
[show the article]

Another academic workflow visualization

2013-04-17

Visualized my current workflow when it comes to dealing with academic work. Includes references to apps and postings.
[show the article]

Recommendation: Colin Purrington’s “Designing Conference Posters”

2013-04-12

Shout-out and recommendation of another site dealing with scientific work. Great postings on lab notebooks, writing science papers, giving scientific talks, requesting letters of recommendation, and laptops in class.
[show the article]

Recommendation: INCIDENTAL COMICS

2013-04-05

Shout-out and huge recommendation to "INCIDENTAL COMICS". Brilliant and heartfelt inspirational comics. Highly, highly recommended.
[show the article]

Workshop: Scientific Work — Topic Notebooks

2013-03-24

An introduction to topic notebooks -- a very useful way of keeping your information available for future work (e.g., writing). Contains lots of tips. Highly, highly recommended.
[show the article]

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.