Tag: “Creativity”

Writing a paper is often imagined as a burden that no one likes, but has to carry on. Though, don’t be so critical about the way you perceive writing. It doesn’t matter what kind of paper you are dealing with. Every task is a new experience and new skills to master. No knowledge of that kind will be useless. The single thing you have to do is to concentrate on the bright sides of writing activity.

We are all born curious. You just need to look at how children play, constantly ask questions and try everything that is unknown. However, at some point in our unfortunate education, this curiosity is somewhat appeased. A myriad of rules, norms and conventions appear that are slowly killing our curiosity. As Einstein said, “it is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education”.

I always thought that personal productivity is primarily a matter of habits, and that (lack of) habits are the main reason why most people cannot maintain an acceptable level of personal organization.

You have probably heard of the famous experiment that was conducted a few decades ago in a laboratory at Stanford University: a few children were left alone in a room and were told that they could have a candy at that time or wait until the experimenter came back, in which case they could have two candies. The experiment did not end there, since the social and cognitive skills of these children were tested some years later. The result was that, at least academically, the ones who had delayed instant gratification obtained better scores and were more popular than those who had not.

In addition to your usual and familiar routines and daily work tasks, you surely have in your to-do lists a handful of tasks that will require a certain level of creativity to get done (and sometimes, a lot of creativity will be necessary). These tasks can be hazardous to your productivity. On the one hand, if you don’t feel very creative, you may put these tasks off. On the other hand, though, these more unusual and creative-oriented tasks are often the ones you will want to do the most in those moments when you feel especially lucid, and this can become a detriment to your ability to accomplish other tasks that may be more important at the time but which don’t seem as interesting or fun.