(Video link here.) At Things Organized Neatly, a website about exactly THAT, we found this terrific except from Ten Bullets, artist Tom Sachs‘ essential principles — “his code” — for employees working in his studio. Here he outlines something he called “knolling”, an action we’ve always done but never had a word for. Sachs’ interpretation is…
Read More2 Practices to Help Heal Aching Backs + Other Illnesses
In Hidden Art + Reminders on a Medicine Cabinet Door, I showed the INSIDE of my sliver of a steel medicine cabinet door and its ever-changing mashup of tiny artworks and reminders fastened with magnets. The one constant is a summary I made over a decade ago of Dr. John Sarno’s approach to dealing with back (and…
Read MoreLouis C.K. on Bad Thoughts + A Practice for Healing with Them
Louis C.K. brilliantly, hilariously and barebones-honestly nails the competition we all have going on in our heads between good thoughts and bad ones: I have like the thing I believe, the good thing, that’s the thing I believe and then there’s this THING. And I don’t believe it, but it is there. It’s always this thing, and…
Read MorePractice: Quiet
A friend recently told us about her practice of taking an occasional day of silence; she shuts down intrusive electronics like her computer, tv, phone, and goes through the day without uttering a word. The neighbors in her smallish town know that when she wears a button saying “Honoring Silence”, they need to do just…
Read MoreLife Practice: Cultivating an Adaptive Worldview
A year ago, we clipped the compelling excerpt, below, from Tom Shakespeare’s BBC article about research indicating that people with disabilities paradoxically tend to display a positive worldview and enjoy a good quality of life because of it (often better than the obviously-abled). Upon reflection, we have found this to be true with friends who have experienced…
Read MorePractice: A Do Nothing Day (via Grant Snyder + Neruda)
At Grant Snider’s very wise Incidental Comics, we found THIS brilliant idea: take a day to do nothing. Only we’d change one word in the last panel of Snider’s comic about the worthy “pursuit of aimlessness”…
Read MorePeace Practice: Viewing the Glass as ‘Already Broken’
At Zen Habits recently, Leo Babauta shows ways to apply a compelling daily practice from Achaan Chah, the Thai meditation master, described by Mark Epstein in Thoughts Without A Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective:
Read MorePractice: Re-Envisioning Everyday Objects (Christoph Niemann)
One of the most delightful Instagrams we know of is Abstract Sunday, an ongoing array of illustrator, author, artist Christoph Niemann‘s stunningly imaginative work. Our favorite theme is his re-envisioning of the most ordinary everyday object — a banana, scissors, a twig —into something totally unexpected, charming, and illuminating, like his wondrous Bouquet of Abandoned Ideas,…
Read MoreThe Practice of Seeing Through New Eyes (Proust + LSD)
This quote reminded us of a stunning video of a 1950’s housewife who took part in an early LSD experiment. As the drug takes hold, she glories in the colors she sees and says “Everything is one. Can’t you see it?” Without taking LSD, we find there is still a great deal of unexpected beauty to see IF we practice noticing what’s around us.
Read MoreTimelapse Video of Earth: Meditation Practice + Reminder
(Video link HERE.) A few days ago, we wrote a post asking ourselves just how we view the universe we live in: friend or foe. We’ve come to realize that there are so many dark things going on in the news and our world, not to mention our own internal fears, that viewing the universe…
Read MoreTiny Powerful Practice: Notice What You Notice
Note to Self: Starting NOW, practice noticing what I notice. What am I tuned into? Through what filter am I viewing things? What’s of real interest, gives true pleasure?
Read MorePractice: Ask ‘What’s Not Wrong?’
The other day a friend sent us this image of a homeless person lying amidst a drawn virtual room. We have no doubt it was staged by an artist (whoever he/she is) but it still has a feeling of randomness, that life could ironically set things up that way. There are the symbols of a cozy…
Read MorePractice: Forgive Yourself and Keep Trying
Just about everyone we know is pretty ruthless when it comes to judging THEMSELVES. And those judgments can derail projects and the creative process in general, stopping us from pushing through to doing what we need to. We loves this simple practice from wise old Seth Godin.
Read MoreOrnithology Wall Mural: Proseck’s Practice of Seeing
(Video link HERE.) There is something enchantingly low-tech and intimate about artist James Proseck‘s painstaking process of making this wonderful, public wall mural: painting bird silhouettes a la Field Guide series of nature books. His technique is very interesting and could easily be applied to the walls of any interior or exterior space – bedroom, dining…
Read MoreLife Practice: Making Amends
Artist Holton Rower taped this sign in his studio years ago: a simple, powerful practice to constantly clear misunderstandings or hurts. Recently, we read literary critic D.G. Myers description of a practice he’s taken up since hearing of his diagnosis terminal prostate cancer:
Read MoreProductivity Practice: Do 1 Hour of Creative Work Before Anything Else
Recently, while skyping with Improvised Life’s web developer Jason Lange, he told us of a technique he had been trying out to keep work moving forward on Share, a film he was making. For months, he’d been getting side-tracked by “paying-work”, expending all his energy on it during the day only to find himself without any…
Read MoreThe Practice of Waiting is Part of Making
Waiting is part of the many steps of creating: a non-action that can very important action. But that ‘non-action’ bit can be difficult to describe, since ‘doing nothing’ can be a time of fermentation and unexpected ideas. So we looked up WAIT. The definitions we found made a little poem:
Read MoreProductivity Practice: Read a Great Kid’s Book
One of our most useful productivity practices is to take a break in the late afternoon, lie down, and read a kid’s book until we fall asleep for a refreshing 30 minute nap. If it’s the right book, it will take our minds AWAY from all that’s on it and fire up our creativity.
Read Moreanywhere mindfullness practice: ‘this is a wonder’
Viewing the moment as a wonder or miracle can shift, soften, and transform the way you view things: a curiously powerful mindfulness practice.
Read Moremindfulness practice 101: hang a reminder you’ll see first thing
Not being the best of meditators, we rely on Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh to gently guide us in mindfulness practice, which, he points out, you can do anywhere, anytime: washing the dishes, walking, cleaning the house, listening to a friend. In The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, he outlines…
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