Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As soon as I finished reading this, I bought four more copies for my writer friends. This book will serve creative professionals and dedicated hobbyists of all stripes, from writers, painters, and graphic designers to design engineers and computer programmers.

This book will help you bring a thoughtful structure to your every day creative work. It's work in the best way; Todd teaches you how to examine your life as a whole to make sure that you have the key elements necessary to support your creating over the long term.

So often I find myself exhausted from a long day at work, with little energy left to give to my own personal art. After reading the book I've made some small, intentional changes to my daily habits and I've been excited to find I have so much more left in the tank for my writing and creating sessions. I even find myself waking up early, filled with new ideas. That's in the short term; I'm excited for the long term change to my production.

This book stands on its own (no knowledge of the podcast necessary), but fans of the podcast will especially love this book! It's definitely money well spent and I even find that it is helping me to synthesize the ideas from other creative revolution books like Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind." The book has earned a spot on my desk, not on my bookshelf.

If only I had been armed with this information in college but Oh how grateful I am to have it now!
A few years ago, I stumbled upon Todd Henry and his podcast. Instantly I was drawn in by his accessible manner, as he painted the picture of what creative burn-out looked like..and it was my self portrait. His emphasis on "filling your tank" with artistic input before you even begin expelling your creative output, changed my entire perspective of the process.

This book, How To Be Brilliant At A Moment's Notice is not only the compilation of the Accidental Creative's brilliant, prolific and healthy golden nuggets but reveals to you what's at the core of your blocked and frustrating creative moments. And then helps you create workable resolutions. I am thrilled to say that it exceeded all expectations that I had. It is the essential user's manual for any creative! If your creative outlook was impacted by Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" then this book will blow you away.

After being a listener of the Accidental Creative podcast for years, it was great to see Todd finally release a book.

This is an important book worth sharing for a few reasons...
1. it's hits all the strong points from Accidental Creative podcasts - and there are many,
2. it covers a ton of uncharted territory extremely relevant to the modern knowledge worker,
3. it articulates art and creativity in way that almost anyone can digest, bringing it closer to home for engineering minds (like mine) and knowledge workers, and
4. brings all this together with a focus on mental and physical health too - it's like a Four Hour Body for the mind.

A thoroughly recommended, refreshing read.

Creativity comes and goes; you can't force it. Todd Henry attempts to show how to enhance your creativity. While there were some interesting points in this book, I was not particularly inspired.

The good points for me:

**Ideas how to maintain a creative rhythm. It's perfectly normal to not be in creative mode all of the time. Recognize the down times and make the most of them.

**The concept of focus. Todd suggests that you group like tasks together so you can maintain rhythm and focus. Try not to constantly check your email while trying to do something else. You end up half concentrating on each task.

**Tips on how to manage your energy. Okay, this is common sense, but it's helpful to have it repeated. I'm most definitely a morning person, so that's when I should be doing my tough tasks that require lots of thinking.

**Suggestion to aside time to just think. This is very hard to do in our overly-scheduled, 24/7 connected world, but it will pay off. Start with just one hour a week.

**Learn how to identify and cut your time sinks. Recognize that surfing the Internet is not productive. Sure it may relax you, but it is a big time sink.

What missed the mark for me:

**The book seemed to ramble. Todd goes from defining creativity and its components, to talking about team work, to giving some concrete steps on how to set up your Big 3, those most important loops in your life.

**I'm still not sure how all the chapters fit together. They seem piecemeal.

This book is best enjoyed if you skim and see if a few of Todd's suggestions resonate with you.

I consider myself a reasonably creative person (I asked my wife the other day and she thought I was, so that settles it!). Some of the creative things I do or have done include: paint and decorate our house, paint small Civil War and Revolutionary War soldiers and create miniature battlefields, teach a Children's Sunday School and fill in for an Adult class, landscaping around our house, enjoy thinking and how to improve areas of my life, etc.

Naturally, I was drawn to Henry's book and wanted to get ideas on how to improve my creativity. The book is divided into 2 main parts:

1. Dynamics of Creativity - working with others, being careful of people and things that hijack creativity.
2. Establishing a Creative Rhythm in Your Life - focus, energy, stimuli, hours, relationships, etc.

Among the many topics covered include:

1. Working with other people can enhance your creativity - of course, I should clarify that working with the RIGHT kind of people can help! Other types of people can be energy and creative draining vampires!
2. Focus - try to stay on one topic for a reasonably prolonged period of time to allow for deep thinking. Some mindless employers expect you to constantly multitask, resulting in short and long-term adverse effects.
3. Stimuli - focus on events, surroundings, etc. that can enhance your productivity. Hint - different people respond to different stimuli.
4. Hours - use the time (morning, afternoon, night) when you are strongest and most likely to think creatively.
5. Energy - get enough rest, eat healthy, and do other things that are good for you and can help enhance your creativity.

I enjoyed reading the book. Most of the content consisted of material I have read before but still need to be reminded of (eat health, get plenty of sleep and rest, take periodic breaks from the project you need creativity on to think more clearly, see how activities relate to each other so you may save time and energy, etc.). Either I already knew the topics or was challenged to think of them with a different perspective and gain new insights.

A minor criticism - I would have liked to have read more in depth about how he went about obtaining a creative insight on something. For example, he mentions that he challenges his fellow team members to get out of the office, take a break, and come back with new insights. They do come back with new insights. I would have liked to have known -

where did they go? (he did mention them going to a museum, bookstore, etc.)
how did where they went related to the project they needed creative insights on?
what was the specific project they were struggling with at the time?
what was the specific insight they got for their project?

Being a reasonably creative person, I like to learn from other peoples' thought processes. Thought at times the book spent a lot of time on concepts and not enough on specific examples.

In fairness to the author, I believe the "Accidental Creative" is more of a book that helps you to prepare to become more creative instead of giving you specific step-by-step examples of how to do so. I suppose that folks more creative than I can figure out for themselves the specific steps.

Still, a good read to challenge and encourage you to prepare yourself to think more creatively when the time comes.

Recommended.

First of all, I love this book.

And now here is "why" of I love this book ....

I think this book is great if you are a creative in the commercial world (ie writer, artist, etc). I don't think it would be as helpful if you have what would be considered traditionally a non-creative job. It's really geared for those trying to avoid burn out and how to maintain the creative "flow" or always being on with some sort of consistency. These are pretty universal problems to most people in these types of jobs AND the book gives some practical everyday advice on how to manage/find creativity when you need to depend on it.

Read the book to see how it applies to you (but only if you are in a creative field.)

First spying the title of "The Accidental Creative", I thought it must be aimed at artists - painters, sculptors, actors, novelists, etc. Although those professions might profit from the book, it really seems to be designed for knowledge workers, people whose jobs involve producing ideas, projects, and deliverables - intellectual property.

All such practitioners face the recurring challenge of coming up with new ideas, following through on them, staying mentally and physically fresh in order to "sharpen the saw" and replenish their creative wellsprings. Todd Henry's book offers a practical blueprint for such knowledge workers to step back and build in processes and systems to maximize their effectiveness and pursue self-regeneration.

I read the "Accidental Creative" with the book in one hand and a yellow highlighter in the other, to mark important passages. By the time I finished, the book looked like it had jaundice. Henry heads a consulting company that provides coaching services and resources for those who face the challenge of generating ideas and seeing then through to completion. Increasingly in our knowledge worker economy, this description applies to more and more people. Henry's tips and suggestions do not come off as preachy. To reinforce his points, he offers real world anecdotes that resonate.

Henry divides the book into two main sections: The Dynamics and Creative Rhythm. After setting the stage for the work environment in which many/most creatives operate, the builds an action plan for managing, growing and harvesting creative ideas in the second major section.

In Part 2, he discusses Focus, Relationships, Energy, Stimuli, and Hours. He adds a chapter on how to best embed best practices into your life to maximize the flow of creative ideas and to avoid burnout. He closes strong, with a chapter titled "Cover Bands Don't Change the World."

If you read only one business book this year, I suggest you make it "The Accidental Creative." It is THE best business book - one of THE best books - I have read in ages. Practical, uplifting, instructive, easy to read.

It is not hyperbole to say that the ideas presented here are game-changers and can be life changing.

I confess that I can't say enough in praise of "The Accidental Creative." It is one of those books that you may want to go back and re-read. As strongly as I endorse it, I realize that your mileage may vary. The book title is somewhat ironic, inasmuch as the book's theme (to me) seems to be that there is very little accidental about generating new and creative ideas. In fact, more will flow if you are intentional about incorporating specific habits and practices into your life. Intentionality is a strong theme running through Henry's chapters.

With that caveat, though, I suggest that if your job or life role involves generating new ideas and acting upon them, reading and heeding "The Accidental Creative" will give you a competitive edge!

I feel guilty whenever I read inspirational or self-help books. Anything that's purpose is to inspire, get me off my ass or teach me concepts that I can use during my day seem like cheating to me.

I've always thought our personal creative talents never need nudging. Practice sure, but how is someone else going to help me with my unique process?

Never mind that I've read many books and watched many videos on how to play baseball, tennis and run. Never mind that I take those lessons to heart and use the drills to improve myself over time. Never mind that I never thought I should just intuitively KNOW how to do these things.

That's what The Accidental Creative is about. It taught me how to identify, nurture and improve my creative work by paying attention to the process I go through to produce it. Nothing too cheerleadery (writers get to make up words), but real steps I can take today.

I suppose I should say I received this book while working with Todd Henry's Street Team, but I also bought the Kindle version, so I'm not some freebie takin' dude.

I've been praising this book to anyone and everyone within earshot since it released, so it's high time I write an Amazon review.

My review's title is "Life Changing" because that is precisely what this book has been for me. I have done my best to begin building into my life (my calendar, more specifically) the practices Todd commends, and it really has been revolutionary for me. I am already more productive and efficient and frankly more fulfilled in my work than ever before. And I can tell this is just the beginning. This book has started me in a direction that I can mature in and tweak and make my own more and more over time.

I can't say the book is an easy read. Todd gives you all the philosophy and theory behind the practices he eventually proposes, and at times I found myself wanting to skip the early material to get to the practical stuff. But it is not difficult reading, either, and the reward at the end is certainly worth whatever effort it takes to read it through from start to finish.

I facilated an Accidental Creative reading group at work with four or five colleagues, and they seemed to get a lot out of it as well.

So enjoy. I certainly did, and I continue to treasure the things I learned and continue to learn from the book.

I began listening to Todd's pod casts a number of years ago, and he has refined the subject matter to a degree that his new book should be required reading at the university level. Many great interviews with groundbreaking thinkers from many different industries. I'd recommend this to anyone, not just creative people. I bought two copies and I'm trying to get everyone at my ad agency to read it. Thank you Todd for everything.