First, thank you for sharing a little detail piece of your creative process. That’s something I found hard to pass along when someone ask me about that. One of my biggest challenge on starting a project is overthinking about the final result beforehand, I mean, creating previous expectations on how the idea will be manifested in reallity. Usually that creates a little barrier in my head causing a spark anxiety feeling which turns down the excitement of doing. I figured that my creative process needs to start like a jam session or warm up. Anyway, I’m keep improving my ways to break the blank canvas syndrome.
Thank you for sharing this sneak peek into your process. The black and white layout explorations are definitely something I’ll try to reduce early-on decision making that I usually toil with for too long.
I have a genuine problem with distractions (that other people place on me) and stimulus. The way I deal with the overstimulation problem is that I draw all the curtains, close the door to the office, turn the lights off, and put on noise cancelling headphones with no music. Basically remove as many distractions and sources of stimulation as possible. Breathe through the nose, and try to slow things down as much as possible. I turn my phone off, and then focus solely on a single aspect of the task at hand, and try to do that for the entire day. It’s rare that projects last a single day, so I can usually break down aspects of the job into smaller parts to tackle, and will then work on those exclusively.
This does NOT however help with distractions from others (phone calls, texts, emails, various notifications), which I have not figured out how to deal with yet. It shatters my ability to think on days when I’m overstimulated. I tend to reply to emails and texts in the evening after work, sometimes on the weekend if the message is important enough that I need to answer with a clear mind (not post work day mush brain).
First, thank you for sharing a little detail piece of your creative process. That’s something I found hard to pass along when someone ask me about that. One of my biggest challenge on starting a project is overthinking about the final result beforehand, I mean, creating previous expectations on how the idea will be manifested in reallity. Usually that creates a little barrier in my head causing a spark anxiety feeling which turns down the excitement of doing. I figured that my creative process needs to start like a jam session or warm up. Anyway, I’m keep improving my ways to break the blank canvas syndrome.
Thank you for sharing this sneak peek into your process. The black and white layout explorations are definitely something I’ll try to reduce early-on decision making that I usually toil with for too long.
I have a genuine problem with distractions (that other people place on me) and stimulus. The way I deal with the overstimulation problem is that I draw all the curtains, close the door to the office, turn the lights off, and put on noise cancelling headphones with no music. Basically remove as many distractions and sources of stimulation as possible. Breathe through the nose, and try to slow things down as much as possible. I turn my phone off, and then focus solely on a single aspect of the task at hand, and try to do that for the entire day. It’s rare that projects last a single day, so I can usually break down aspects of the job into smaller parts to tackle, and will then work on those exclusively.
This does NOT however help with distractions from others (phone calls, texts, emails, various notifications), which I have not figured out how to deal with yet. It shatters my ability to think on days when I’m overstimulated. I tend to reply to emails and texts in the evening after work, sometimes on the weekend if the message is important enough that I need to answer with a clear mind (not post work day mush brain).