Ways to Cope with Too Many Ideas?

"A good artist has less time than ideas." -

Kippenberger

Oh how true! And this doesn't just apply to those of us who are visual artists; anyone who allows their creativity to flourish must surely identify with this Kippenberger quote. 

Ideas are at the very heart of creativity and when they come thick and fast they can easily overwhelm us. Sometimes the torrent of ideas, all jostling for 
attention, can feel more like a burden than a gift. I know there are times when I despair of ever getting out from under the crushing weight of them. 

When panic sets in, the impossibility of acting on all of them can make me want to run away and do something completely unrelated!

But I never actually do that 

because there are ways of coping with

'Too Many Ideas Syndrome'!

First of all, I found that knowing that other people 'suffer' from the same thing was an enormous help. (Thank you, Internet!) And I read through various articles on the subject with suggestions for keeping our cool when ideas threaten to overwhelm us. 

Some of them work for me, others don't. 

But here are the main strategies you may want to try if you feel in danger of being overwhelmed by your stream of ideas:

1. Write down your ideas as soon as possible after they enter your mind. This was by far the most popular strategy and it's the one that I find works best for me. Whether you keep a special notebook for 'ideas-on-the-go' or various notepads and jotters around your house and work-space (especially near your bed!), it doesn't matter. You may even find a specially dedicated folder on your computer works best for you. 

The important thing is to get the ideas out of your head and onto paper, leaving your mind free to concentrate on the job in hand - which, in many cases, is simply falling asleep!

2. Take a little time to review your 'jottings' regularly. What you may well find is that some of the ideas that seemed brilliant at the time, may have lost their gloss while they were waiting for you to come back to them. If so, that's great! Cross them out, delete them or do whatever you do to get rid of them.

Having reduced the number of ideas a little, look closely and see if any of them relate to one another in a way that means they can be combined; or maybe some of them are almost duplicates. If so, that will reduce the ideas tally even further. 

The next step is to prioritize the remaining ideas and even, if you are anything like me, organise them into a realistic schedule for carrying them out.

Once those steps are done, 

you should feel a sense of freedom,

 a lightening of the load  of 'too many ideas'! 

You don't necessarily have to

 stick to your plan/schedule;

 just making it can be therapeutic.

If you've carried out these two steps - writing down your ideas and then pruning and prioritising them - and you still feel over-burdened, here are some other ideas I came across, none of which works as well for me as the steps above.

1. Take time out to meditate.

2. Repeat to yourself, or out loud: 'There is plenty of time.' (this one definitely doesn't work for me at my time of life.)

3. Convince yourself that whatever needs to be done will be done. (again, to me that would involve putting on heavily rose-tinted spectacles.) 

Have you heard the Latin phrase 

'Ars longa, vita brevis.'? 

It originated from the work of the Ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, and the true meaning, as interpreted by Wikipedia, is:  "it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one's expertise (in, say, medicine) and one has but a short time in which to do it"

But it's often translated as -

 'Art is long, Life is short!' 

 - and as such, I can't begin to count how many times a day it runs through my mind!

How do you cope with

Too Many Ideas?

Time to Nurture your Creativity

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a young mother who works in my bank. ‘I used to be creative’ she told me, ‘when I was young’. 

And it reminded me of a question I’ve often been asked, ‘Have you always been creative?’ 

To me it seems like rather an odd question, suggesting that we can start our lives as ‘non-creative’ and later become ‘creative’ – I believe that is the wrong way round.

When you think about some of the core aspects of ‘creativity’ – curiosity, imagination, the ability to play, for instance, isn’t it obvious that we’re all creative when we’re young? We were probably born that way.

But sadly, somewhere along the line, probably during our 'socialization' stage, our creativity got stifled or crowded out by the need to become ‘responsible’ and take a ‘sensible’ path through life. And often that’s the easier option too.

Allowing our creativity to flourish doesn't always lead to an easy life!

For instance, it can cause what I call, ‘Ideas Overwhelm Syndrome’ when we become painfully aware that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day, or days in a lifetime, to carry out all the ideas that pop up into our consciousness - leaving us feeling overwhelmed! (If you are plagued with this syndrome, just google 'overwhelmed by ideas' and you'll find you are far from alone and you might even find some good coping strategies!)

And while on the one hand, we encourage creativity, and rightly so, we need to be aware of what it involves. 

As I wrote in a recent post, to nurture our creativity we must be prepared to allow time to daydream. But we also need time to experiment, time to make mistakes, to get it wrong, to take the risk that an idea won’t work out, time to allow the seed of an idea to germinate. Time that we may easily feel that we are wasting, especially in this fast-moving 'Internet Age'.

None of us likes to feel that we have wasted our precious time!!! I may be wrong but I have the impression that women are more inclined to feel guilty about wasting time. I certainly believe that we women have more difficulty than men when it comes to allowing ourselves to play.

Some years ago I knew an artist, a doctor’s wife, who came to an art class I attended even though she was already a very competent artist and she mostly just set up her easel in the corner and painted, oblivious of what was going on in the class. She travelled some distance to come to the class and when asked why she did it, she explained that she felt guilty and self-indulgent painting at home, especially if her cleaning lady was working around her. But in the class, everyone was doing it so she felt it must be OK.

The rest of the class ‘gave her permission’, as it were. 

We all need to give ourselves permission – and time! - to play, to make mistakes, to make a mess, to daydream, to let our minds wander away from the ‘sensible’ the ‘responsible’ to immerse ourselves in exploring an idea, leaving behind our  ‘destination consciousness'. 

It’s true that it’s so much easier to do it in a group. But if no group is available, we need to do it anyway. 

Are you giving your creativity time to flourish?