Michael Hyatt has a brief, helpful discussion of differences in mindset between successful and unsuccessful creatives.
In biblical studies, we might not tend to self-identify as creatives. Certainly biblical scholarship involves a different kind of thing than novel writing, painting, or the like. But it definitely does require its own kind of imagination.
A few of Hyatt’s most salient points are that successful creatives “take responsibility,” “work hard,” “demonstrate grit,” and “remain humble.”
For the balance of Hyatt’s discussion, see his original post.
See also Steven Pressfield’s War of Art.
I appreciate that you keep the discipline of creativity before us. I really appreciate Gadamer’s statement (as you linked above) when he writes that “It is imagination [Phantasie] that is the decisive function of the scholar.” (Philosophical Hermeneutics, 12). I think for me, I work hard on my scholarship but it isn’t always “even” (i.e. consistent). In some ways, I tend to be more creative when I am crisis managing, and I enjoy the creativity that is expressed on the other side it. However, on the other hand, crisis managing leads to greater stress, exhaustion, and lack of the thoroughness in terms of editing and fine-tuning that I want which inevitably leads to frustration due to a less polished and detailed work as I would like. I need to find some way to get the creativity that comes from intensive, pressured, deep-work in a way that is consistent and timely. Any suggestions would be great! Thanks again for your daily gleanings Dr. Stark! I am learning quite a bit from them! Blessings on the Christmas season!
In Christ,
Matthew Miller
Thanks so much for your thoughts, Matthew! (And my apologies for the delay in this response. I’m just now back in the office from some good family time over Christmas break. 🙂 )
In terms of crisis management, there’s no end to the things that can impinge on plans we’ve set. But especially if there are certain kinds of things that regularly (might) put you into a more crisis mode, I’d recommend seeing if you can’t get ahead of the next crisis cycle by asking if there’s anything you can do now to prevent that cycle from starting or mitigate its impact. I’ve learned the hard way that I need to do this in a whole variety of areas. But one example would be proactively setting others expectations about what I will or won’t be able to do during certain blocks of time. That might not keep them from asking, but it at least gives me the freedom to not feel like I’m on the hook for getting someone a response when I’m in time dedicated to something else.
Something else I’ve found particularly helpful is time blocking. It’s been a good way for me to make myself aware of just how scarce time already is well before I’d otherwise feel myself to be in crisis mode. I’ve tried Pomodoro and things like that, but that’s just seemed too cumbersome and artificial.
You can do time blocking in a paper notebook quite well (Cal Newport has some good examples of how he does this). Since I use Google Calendar and Todoist and have been wanting to keep away from using additional tools as much as possible, I’ve been using the integration between these two apps to do my time blocking. (See #8 in this post for more detail.)
I hope this is helpful. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
thanks for useful information
My pleasure. Glad you found it helpful!