Tag: creative time studio

Creativity as a Resource – workshop at PWN – Copenhagen

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This past Tuesday, I had the pleasure together with Jennifer Bruder from Brain Dialogues to host our Creativity as a Resource Workshop for the Professional Women’s Network, Copenhagen chapter.

It was a very lively and cozy forum with 12 professional women from all over the world, who eagerly tapped into their creative side that evening. In just 3 hours we explored a wide range of issues, such as how to become more efficient, less stressed, and more creative with our daily tasks.

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We have experienced how framing and limiting time can be a tool to boost creativity – it helps to cut out our inner censor and place all of our focus on the process of creation itself.

We stressed that creativity is a skill that can be trained, much in the same way you train your muscles. Thus, it follows, you do need to make time to be creative. The good news is, by giving ourselves 10 minutes a day, we can greatly build on our creative skills and our creative brain. There is no need to look for special days, nor a special atmosphere in order to get into the creative mode. Establishing a daily 10-minute routine will make an enormous difference to your energy, mood and to the quality and novelty of your ideas.

We have also traveled through time during the workshop – tapping into our past experiences and positive emotions, through relaxation and meditation, drawing the inspiration from these experiences and creating something new in the present moment. And we have imagined a few alternatives, some very short sketches of the future possible self. We know that techniques designed to tap into your memories, your emotions and your real and imagined experiences enhance the creative process. Mindfulness is an excellent tool to get this going.

We had a wonderful time and we were so thrilled to feel the inspiration and energy flowing in the air throughout the evening!

If you’re curious to experience your own creative energy, build the creative muscle, and gain motivation for establishing your own creative routine firsthand, we are offering a longer, more in depth course beginning on November 13th. We will meet once a week for four weeks and we would love to have you join us.

Looking forward to exploring creativity together with you!

Anna & Jennifer

About the Hosts:
*Jennifer has a PhD in Neuro-cognitive psychology and owner of the Brain Dialogues, where she translates how brain science can be applied to education, personal development and the workplace.
*Anna has a PhD in psychology and is owner of Creative Time Studio and altogether a very creative person!
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How to be happy: Don’t compare yourself to others

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Some days are like that – the first thing you want to do is to clean up the space around, to restructure, to create opportunities for new things to happen.

Spending 5-10 minutes for going through some papers that got accumulated over the past few weeks, throwing some things out, putting away some others, creating space for new or more relevant to be in front of you – feels so rewarding!

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I don’t curerntly have an opportunity to set up a permanent table for my creative projects. A friend shared her tips how she does it – she uses a window sill or a small shelf when she is on the go and once more settled, sets up a table. My window sill is currently an extension of my working desk and sudden;y I realized, that actually it doesn’t have to be. Most of my work realted stuff I can bring to another place and actually set up a small creative window sill here.

While cleaning up, I have stumbled upon some interesting previous work. My first attempt at making a cut out poetry from the newspaper headlines, and also my work on vitality from February, when I was rather sick and really needed some strengths to get over a cold. I’ve done it in one of the Creative Rendezvous sessions. We chose a strength that we felt like we really lacking at the moment and tried to picture it while using a non-dominant hand. It was very inspiring – since themovements become more free, since you can’t control the very fine movements that your dominant hand is capable of doing. It felt invigorating and liberating at the same time.

One of my favorite excercises in the Creative Flow as a Resource course is my adaptation of a Life Ring exercise. I believe that it is very beneficial for own mental health and life satisfaction not to compare your place in life to others, but to you, 3 months ago or a year ago. Reflect on how are you actually doing since then? What has changed? What got better? What goe worse? What can you improve? Are your priorities and interests still the same?

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100 days of celebrating time

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I’ve joined THE100DAYPROJECT started by Elle Luna:

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As proposed by the rules, I chose my own action – which will be celebrating time as a way to follow up my quest2016 answer to a prompt what would be question of main focus for the year – “What is time?”. And my unique hashtag will be #100daysofcelebratingtime. I though it will be also fun to keep track of all the different projects that I’m working on now.

And here my first 10 days of 100 days of celebrating time. Follow me on Instagram and join the fun with your 100 day project!

Day 1/100 – time to travel, time to observe

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Participating in the Danish Research Festival

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In the week 17, or from April 25 to May 1, there will be Danish Research Festival running across the country and this year I’ll be part of it!

The organizers say that “the festival programme has about 500 different events in more than 100 cities all over the country and every year more than 65,000 guests visit the festival.” It is ran every year and it is organized by Ministry of Higher Education and Science.

It seems like the main idea of the Festival is to bring science closer to general public. Sounds like fun! I’ll be exploring different events during the week and will keep you updated on my favorites from the proposed programme.

If you are in Copenhagen and you’re interested in psychology of time, please join me!

Psychology of time: Before, after and in-between

April 28th, 19:00 to 21:00 at Rantzausgade 34

Please register here, since the places are limited.

This talk aims to introduce you to the exciting topic of psychological time.

The different roles time plays in our everyday life, how it impacts what we do and how, how the tempo of a city has an impact of our health and how to find a temporal balance will be explored during the talk.

We will also talk about temporal aspects of groups and cultures and how those influence cross-cultural communication and sustainability issues.

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Creative flow as a resource

May 1st, 12:00 to 14:00 at Rantzausgade 34

Please register here, since the places are limited.

This workshop is designed to serve as a window into a different reality, a few hours just for yourself, away from usual stress, uncertainties and routines. An opportunity to zoom out, to do something different or something long forgotten, but enjoyable and invigorating.

It is time to get together with your inner creative and a few other like minded people and do something fun and inspiring.

It is time to take a break, breathe, be with yourself and dissolve in your dreams and then continue with new energy and focus.

It is time to stop waiting for the muse, we’ll start without her, but she’ll join us anyway.

It is time to create and discover!

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“10 things I could’ve done, but didn’t” or what to do with the self-blame

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During the last session of Creative Rendezvous I included a prompt from Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like an Artist Journal”: “10 things I could’ve done, but didn’t”. My own immediate reaction was that I couldn’t come up with what to write, and managed to list three things. During our discussion, it became evident that actually this prompt can easily move into self-blame and regrets domain. This got me thinking what would be a more constructive approach instead?

Eventually I managed to complete the list and after analyzing the answers I came up with the following strategy how to deal with it, how to prevent self-blame and have a more positive outlook when evaluating the answers.

Divide your answers into four groups:

1. To celebrate – maybe it was actually good for you that some things on your list did not happen. For example, if you’re working on quitting smoking, then saying “I could’ve smoked a cigarette last night after that beer, but didn’t” is great, it’s an achievement – celebrate that, compliment yourself on it!

2. Still to celebrate (+/-) – the outcome generally is more on the positive side. For example, “I could’ve spend more time and finalize the article, but instead I went to bed early” or “Could’ve taken more photos during the session, but got totally engaged in the moment and forgot”. The issues mentioned in the “I could’ve done” part are “nice to have”, but overall outcome is still positive. The “didn’t” part has a positive quality to it, something positive, energizing, valuable happened instead. The “nice to have” part can be looked into further – is it something that you should work on or it’s ok as it is?

3. To act on – a group of issues that you would like to act upon, for example “I could’ve done more yoga”, “I could’ve listened to those classes I bought on Creative Live” and there is no continuation to it, there was nothing else with the positive outcome that you did instead. First of all, see how many of those you have in relation to the previous groups. Then weigh them. Do those things bring you closer to your dream, to your “true north”? Ask a follow up question: “If I spend some time doing this next week, will it bring me closer to my dream?” If it will, then that’s an item to act upon. And if not – it goes to the last group:

4. Not to pay attention to.

If still not sure where to start and which issue to choose to work with, then answer these questions for each item (inspired by one of the exercises in Julia Cameron’s book “Way of Artist”):

– Does it cost money or is it free?
– Expensive or cheap?
– Alone or with somebody?
– Job related?
– Physical risk?
– Fast-paced or slow?
– Mind, body, or spiritual?

This should help to make a decision – which is the issue that you would like to act on in the nearest future. Evaluate your calendar – how often can it happen, when exactly?

Schedule it in, make it happen and enjoy it!

Temporal Matters Salon

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This has been an exciting collaboration so far – between me, representing the International Time Perspective Network and the Celebrating Time, 3rd International Conference on Time Perspective and Creative Roots: Collective Urbanism.

For most part, very outside my comfort zone, but that is why I ventured on this adventure – to explore where and how the psychological theories about time and urbanism issues intersect.

So far we held two Salons at the Cafe Ved Buen. One talk was dedicated to Pace of Life and the other one – to chronotope. The more I read about the chronotope, the more I was getting inspired by this concept and its possible applications outside the literary studies.

You can see my prezi’s from both of the occasions and you’re most welcome to drop by next time! See the schedule and sign up on Eventbrite.

Temporal Matters Salon #1: Pace of Life

Temporal Matters Salon #2: Chronotope: the time-space

Temporal Matters Salon

Creative Rendezvous – February 21, 2016 | Copenhagen

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Creative rendezvous – it is the time for you!

It’s time to get together with your inner creative and a few other like minded people and do something fun and inspiring.
It’s time to discover some of your hidden talents, get in touch with your inner Kandinsky or maybe Hemingway..

It’s time to get into the creative flow and extend the present moment.
It’s time to break free from some of the boundaries we tend to create for ourselves and discover new opportunities.

It’s time to take a break, breathe, be with yourself and dissolve in your dreams and then continue with new energy and focus.It’s time to create and discover!
It’s time to stop waiting for the muse, we’ll start without her, but she’ll join us anyways!

 

Price: 300 DKK
Art supplies, tea / coffee, snacks are provided.

Places are limited. Please book a spot with 50 DKK via eventbrite:

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