Tips to Eliminate Brain Clutter

Ever try and concentrate on something but your brain just doesn't seem to want to cooperate?  Welcome to Brain Clutter.   I've always had this problem, mostly because I have so many interests and ideas always popping into my head.   I am often told that I 'Think too much.' 
Honestly it's not something I can control, I do think a lot, and when I can't figure something out it gets worse I end up not being able to stop thinking about it until I do.... but is it good?

I'm not sure... I mean on one hand if you think too much eventually you have to make a decision or lose opportunities, on the other hand if you don't think about it at all and just jump in blind you may end up in a worse situation.  So I guess the key is balance.  I recently did some research on the topic and found some helpful tips for 'Decluttering' the brain.

1. Write it down. If you have a bunch of things on your mind, it helps to get them on paper and off your mind. ( This is useful, which is partly why I created this blog, I am horrible at keeping a journal, so I feel blogging when I have something to say is a lot easier and more rewarding when I get contacted that other people feel the same. After all a journal can't email you thoughts... yet. )

2. Identify the essential.  Figure out what needs to be done now and what can wait and focus on the 'Now' rather than trying to figure everything out at the same time.  ( I have been working on this, I think a talk with my dad about this helped, he had mentioned once that instead of trying to tackle one big problem, chip away at it by trying to solve small parts of it... makes sense.)

3. Eliminate. Now that you’ve identified the essential, you can identify what’s not essential. What things in your life are not truly necessary or important to you? ( This is also interesting because I've discovered that we all have 'Wants' but most times I think we 'Want-to-want' in other words and for an example, you may want to go fishing, or you see other people do it and it looks interesting, so you go out and buy fishing tackle only to discover a year later you never went fishing...because you don't really want to, you just thought you did.   By eliminating 'pipe dreams' you can focus on what you really want and then put all of yourself into it, rather than trying to do many things at the same time.)

4. Rethink your sleep. Sometimes we aren’t getting enough sleep, or our sleeping patterns aren’t ideal. ( Again with the sleep!   I've tried changing my sleep cycle...but it's useless, I am a night owl, all my thoughts and creativity seem to appear at night no matter what, so what I decided was to get the most quality sleep instead of longer amounts of time sleeping.  Hopefully that helps. )

5. Take a walk. Getting outside and doing some kind of physical activity is a great way to get stuff off your mind. ( This I need to do more often, I used to do it a lot. )

6. De clutter your surroundings. Cleaning up your house or organizing it will go a long ways towards helping your brain function well.

So there we have it, a good list, let's see how it works!

Tips for Growing as an Artist

So here's a question for you...
Have you ever gone through your portfolio - Painting, Photography, Graphic Design, Writing or any other medium and felt like throwing it all away because you just saw another artist's portfolio?
This happens to me so many times, but what does it do?  Well, you can get discouraged and feel like giving up, or hopefully, it causes you to get better and inspires you to create more.

The truth is there isn't an artist in the known universe that does not feel like that at times, or daily... it's how we grow, we need to keep working, even when we don't want to, to push ourselves to get better but how?

Here are some Tips....

1. Get Inspired - Browse Magazines, not just in your particular field either, you never know what image will flip that creative switch.  Browse artists blogs and Websites, browse Deviantart, Tumblr, Flickr and other sources. Listen to different styles of music.  Visit Museums and Galleries.
Immerse yourself in creativity... Take a shower in creativity.... Fill your soul with creativity.

2. Don't judge yourself to harshly - I know it seems impossible, but accept that someone will always seem more creative than you at some point, use it to fuel your own creativity and help you grow.

3. Get involved - Communicate with other artists, and share your experiences with each other. You will discover that others feel the same as you.

4. Keep your skills sharp -  I know, from personal experience with Photography, there is always more to learn, new gadgets, new techniques so keep practicing your craft.

5. Create often -  You can't be a part-time artist if you want to keep growing, you need to keep working daily.

I hope these simple tips will help you on your creative journey... hey, we are all in this together!

A Negative Post... Sorta

So I guess this is going to be a negative post ... although not really, more like a curious thought in the form of a blog post hoping to answer a question.  Yeah, just like that.
For the last few months I have been noticing something, while reading Facebook posts, talking to friends, listening to friends talk about friends and family, and family members talk about everything else.. that people seem very bitter and have allowed themselves to become very 'pessimistic'...
Now, I get that these are not the greatest of times, the economy being what it is, jobs being what they are, but this is also not the worst time in history either, so why all the hate and frustration?

I don't really want to turn this into a negative post, since it would kind of defeat the purpose, but I would like to know why so many people seem to be so angry about everything.   Most of the problems we endure in life are caused by our own decisions, myself included, we can't always change what happens to us but we can decide how we react to it.   I know, I know, sounds very 'fortune cookie-ish' but it's still true.

It really is all about perspective, you can choose to see things as challenges and decide to keep going no matter what, or we can all just claim to be victims and talk about how unfair everything is.   The important thing, in my opinion anyway is that we do what we can for each other, after all true happiness is not found in things but in how we are there for each other.

So keep smiling!