The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice Hardcover - 2011

by Todd Henry

"You go to work each day tasked with (1) inventing brilliant solutions that (2) meet specific objectives by (3) defined deadlines. If you do this successfully you get to keep your job. If you don't, you get to work on your résumé. The moment you exchange your creative efforts for money, you enter a world where you will have to be brilliant at a moment's notice. (No pressure, right?)"Many of us assume that our creative process is beyond our ability to influence, and pay attention to it only when it isn't working properly. For the most part, we go about our daily tasks and everything just "works." Until it doesn't. We treat our creative process like a household appliance. It's just expected to work quietly in the background, and we lose sight of how much we depend on it until the day we're stuck with dirty socks.

Adding to this lack of understanding is the rapidly accelerating pace of work. Each day we are faced with escalating expectations and a continual squeeze to do more with less. We are asked to produce everincreasing amounts of brilliance in ever-shrinking amounts of time. There is an unspoken (or spoken!) expectation that we'll be accessible 24/7, and as a result we frequently feel like we're "always on."

Now business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to unleash your creative potential. Whether you're a creative by trade or an "accidental creative," this book will help you quickly and effectively integrate new ideas into your daily life.

Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, the book offers a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm, whether you're a manager or a consultant, a designer or a performer. As he writes:

"The always-on manner with which many creatives approach their work is arrhythmic, but the creative process is naturally rhythmic. Working harder and staring more intently at the problem to achieve better ideas is like trying to control the weather by staring at the clouds. Rather, you need to incorporate practices that instill a sense of structure, rhythm, and purpose into your life. You need to create space for your creative process to thrive rather than expecting it to operate in the cracks of your frenetic schedule. This will not only help you generate better ideas now, but it will also ensure that you are acting on the things that matter most instead of drifting through your days."