We’re continually bombarded by minutia — mail soliciting our car insurance and our life insurance dollars, phone calls about changing our phone service or subscribing to the local paper, television coverage of the grosses of the latest hit movies, hundreds of details at work, Internet information about everything under the sun, and our own racing, disconnected thoughts.
“It’s best to put your big idea up in extra-big letters to help you see it from across the room but more importantly to remind you that it matters to you.”
In this onslaught, the big creative ideas that really matter to us can easily get lost.
One way to help prevent such losses is to write a big idea on the erasable board hanging on your wall and leave it up there for a long time, for weeks and even months, to remind you of the central theme of your current work or to help you incubate new work. When an idea is up on your board like that, it holds special weight and garners special attention.
It’s best to put your big idea up in extra-big letters to help you see it from across the room but more importantly to remind you that it matters to you. Don’t worry about picking the perfect word or phrase. If you have a big idea in mind — say, “going the next step with color” — just putting up “COLOR” in huge letters on your erasable board will do a fine job of helping you incubate and percolate painting ideas.
What big idea would you like to incubate or wrestle with over the coming weeks and months? Spend a few minutes finding a word or phrase that captures the depth, bigness, richness and essence of the creative work you want to tackle. Once you’ve captured it, write it large on your erasable board.
If you don’t have a current creative project under way that really intrigues you or if you don’t currently have a big, juicy idea to bite into, your task is to take the time to find one.
