Zen and the art of creative moments

One idea comes after another, and another, and another. Simply trying is out of the question, and everything seems to be flowing naturally. The best part? Almost all of the ideas are the kind that make you say “Ah hah!”

It’s a creative Zen moment.

The moment where your thoughts and realizations, your actions and presentations, all seem to be flowing perfectly in synchronization.

A creative Zen moment typically happens unexpectedly, but there are a few things you can do to stimulate the same creative Zen-like feelings.

Here’s how to trigger your creative Zen…

When you are having a creative Zen moment your mind is completely synchronized. The creative parts of your brain are working fluidly with the processing parts of your brain (left vs right, if you will). So, what do you do to cause your brain to be in-sync?

You write, a lot.

Writing is the beginning of synchronization between both parts of your brain, and as such is the perfect way to induce creative Zen. Writing as much as possible means that the creative parts of your brain have to work to come up with interesting things to write about and interesting, creative ways to write them, while the processing and rational part of your brain has to figure out the right words to use and how to put them down onto paper (or onto your blog).

Before starting a project at work, or at school, or for any other reason, take a few minutes to write. You don’t have to write anything pertaining to your project, and you don’t have to take yourself seriously. Just write.

What you write doesn’t have to make sense. It just needs to be something that you can think about and physically write or type.

After writing for about 15 minutes, both parts of your brain will begin to work together, almost seamlessly. All that’s left to do now is get creative, and produce some great ideas while you are in creative Zen mode.

Try it out for yourself. Write for a few minutes before trying to get creative. The process will empower a creative Zen-like moment and your creativity will flow like water droplets from a leaf.