John Cleese on how to be creative

Cory Doctorow 1:00 pm Fri Apr 13, 2012

John Cleese's 35-minute lecture on creativity is warm and funny and humane. I find myself disagreeing rather strongly with his central premise, though: Cleese advises giving yourself 30 minutes to sit quietly before being creative, letting all the nagging voices in your head quieten before you try to be creative. I've really found that by having good priority management — the kinds of to-do lists recommended in Getting Things Done — means that when distractions arise, I can put them into a queue for later treatment and clear my mind to work. That said, the advice on being unserious, on working together without shooting down each others' ideas, and so on, is fabulous.

John Cleese on Creativity

(Thanks, Andreas!)

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