I just read this really awesome article on TechCrunch by James Altucher about how you can filter out negative thoughts so that you are more productive. The article is tailored towards entreprenuers with startups but I think that the ‘nine filters’ that James talks about are absolutely suited to life in general.
“Live each day as if it is your first”
One of my favourite bits of the article is the idea that you should live each day as if it is your first. When I read this I first thought about the Buddhist idea of having a beginner’s mind. The theory is that having a clear mind allows you to look at a situation with out any pre-conceptions and therefore produce an action that is truly your own. When you think about it this is pretty powerful.
Being a web designer it’s easy to get bogged bown into the ‘standard’ layouts of a website and this can really put a downer on your creativity. If you asked someone to design a web page that had never seen one before I bet that it would look nothing like the sorts of web pages out there today. Having a mind free of any knowledge or pre-conceptions about a subject can help you to be really innovative, without even knowing it.
Anyway you should check out the article it makes a really interesting read, you can find it here.