I’m beginning an experiment to try to increase my levels of mental energy. By “mental energy”, I mean being able to focus on challenging or creative tasks without quickly becoming mentally fatigued or susceptible to distraction. I often find myself in a vicious cycle of low mental energy causing stress and...

Keep Going is a short book written and illustrated by Austin Kleon. The subtitle is: “10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad”. Notes Kleon says he wrote the book because he needed to read a book answering the question of how to keep going with creative work. The book is a list of what’s helped him. The...

I’ve been reading about empathy over the past year or so, and a chapter from the book On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers caught my attention. The full chapter title is: “Dealing With Breakdowns in Communication – Interpersonal and Intergroup”. Notes Rogers suggests a rule for debates and arguments: each person can...

Wired to Create, by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, is a book that identifies some characteristics and habits of highly creative people. Notes Introduction studies of creative people have found some apparently contradictory personality traits – for example, some creative people score highly on measures of...

The Magic of Sleep Thinking is a book by Eric Maisel and Natalya Maisel. It gives practical advice for problem-solving during slow wave sleep and describes the experiences of some of the authors’ coaching clients. Notes The discussion of non rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep in the introduction aligns with the...

Notes on a chapter about the Default Mode Network and how it may influence creativity

Notes on a chapter from "The Psychology of Creative Writing"

Notes on a chapter about REM sleep and creativity

Reflections on week 3 of the Walking in this World course

Brief notes on a selection of peer-reviewed papers about possible methods for increasing the duration of slow-wave or REM sleep

Notes and reflections on a book about applying the principles of improvisational theatre to daily life

Notes on a book summarising cognitive research into creative incubation