by Naomi | Mar 7, 2017 | Creative Life
Visual thinking is a superpower that is often:
a. under utilized
or
b. completely ignored
Now, if you’re thinking–Visual thinking is for illustrators or architects, maybe for children, but not for me—stick with me for a moment. Growing up, I’ll bet that you struggled (at least a little) with either letters or numbers. If a teacher had allowed you to give up, saying, “I’m not a math person,” or “I simply can’t read,” you’d have breathed a sigh of relief at the time. But, consider what would have happened if you had opted out of math or reading and writing entirely. We know that the ability to think in numbers or to think in letters is key. However, somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten the importance of thinking in images. We’ve allowed over half of the adult population to believe untruths such as, “I can’t draw.”
Why is visual thinking important?
Sunni Brown, author of the fantastic book, The Doodle Revolution, puts it this way: “A doodler is connecting neurological pathways with previously disconnected pathways. A doodler is concentrating intently, sifting through information, conscious and otherwise, and–much more often than we realize–generating massive insights.”
Howard Gardner identified visual intelligence as one of many intelligences. Linguistic intelligence and mathematical/logical intelligence are also on that list. It is true that different brains have different strengths. However, the fact that I don’t have a naturally mathematical brain does not negate my need to think and conceptualize in numbers. Linguistic skill is obviously key to my capacity as an author and the Executive Director of a literary nonprofit, but numbers are also a daily part of my work. I’m grateful for teachers who insisted I not give up on numbers simply because I did not have a strong inclination toward them.
The point is, many of us have decided we aren’t comfortable with visual thinking and thus, we’ve dismissed an entire literacy that could have been at our disposal. We’ve dismissed thinking in images because it is for other people or worse, childish. We’ve given ourselves permission to not conceptualize big ideas in sketch form, or via visual metaphor. We’ve limited our capacity for thinking big thoughts because … why? For most of us, it comes down to the ability to draw.
Most adults are afraid to draw.
Somewhere along the way, maybe in elementary school, someone pointed out that our horse didn’t really look like a horse. We noticed that our lines were wavy or our circles were lopsided. We expected ourselves to be photo-realistic artists, and for the most part, we expected this to happen instantly, magically, with no official training or concerted practice.
For the record, in order to think visually, you do NOT have to be an amazing artist. In fact, if you don’t want to, you never have to show your doodles to anyone else. However, I’d strongly, strongly encourage you to take a month and play around with doodling. See what comes out of it, and if you aren’t seeing results after giving it a real try, then let it go. My bet, though, is that you will be a visual thinking convert.
Visual thinking will help you in many ways.
If you’re willing to give this a go, I’d highly recommend your checking out Sunni Brown’s book. She provides research, inspiration for the mindset needed and practical strategies–everything you will need for your experiment. If you need a little nudge, though, here are some reasons why visual thinking will absolutely help you.
- When you draw, you externalize your thinking. We can only focus on a thought for a short amount of time before it is gone. Drawing a concept out on paper allows us to stick with the idea, to follow it where it leads.
- Images tap into figurative thinking. In order to make a concept, say freedom, into an image, we have to answer the question, What does freedom look like? This question, in and of itself, is useful as it brings new thinking to the table. When we nail down abstract thinking into concrete images, we start to see a path between our goal and what it might look like in real life.
- Images communicate quickly. There’s a reason for the explosion of infographics as of late. We can absorb information laid out in a combination of words and images much more quickly than we can read and comprehend long paragraphs (such as the paragraphs that make up this blog post, much to my chagrin)!
Need a tiny extra nudge?
Listen to your language over the next couple weeks. Notice if you use phrases such as, “I can’t see it happening,” or “If I could just see my workload,” or in response to a colleague’s idea, “What will that look like?” These phrases are clues that you are a visual thinker. You want to be able to mentally see something. Though your imagination is a strong tool for doing so, bringing that image out into the physical world will be even more inspirational. What you can imagine, you can draw. What you can draw, you can see. What you can see, you can make practical. And what you can make practical, you can make happen.
What does the superpower of visual thinking accomplish? Visual thinking will help you imagine ideas, see them, and bring them to life. Not too shabby as superpowers go, right?
My challenge to you is this:
Give yourself a month to play around with visual thinking. Use The Doodle Revolution if books help you explore new ideas. If not, simply take out pencil and paper and sketch the next time you’re planning or brainstorming. Conceptualize with a combination of words and images. Even when you don’t have pencil and paper in hand, play the “What does that look like?” game. Picture concepts such as creativity or hope in image form. Then, once you’ve played around, come back and share what you’ve noticed or learned. Or share with me on Facebook or Twitter. Let’s learn together! I can’t wait to chat with you. As you can probably tell, this is a subject of intense passion for me.
Here’s to you and your creative insights!
by Naomi | Apr 3, 2014 | Creative Life
It’s been a while since my last balance post. Yes, life has been busy, and yes, posting has fallen off the list of most important to-do’s. I’m not big on excuses so I probably wouldn’t even mention it. However, my delay is an excellent case in point. It’s essential to know what’s important when seeking balance. Wise advisors suggest that one shouldn’t start a blog if they don’t mean to keep it up on a very regular basis. Same with Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and various other social networks. I disagree.
I’d much rather have an irregular interesting post from one of my creative friends than not ever see a post from them. But creatives NEED their offline space and time. They can’t commit to constant online chatter. If we’re being honest, we know it’s nearly impossible to predict when a creative storm is coming on and we’ll need to disengage to hole up in our art spaces and imagine. Would any of us really want our creative friends to feel they should stop in the midst of that most-fabulous flow to post on their blog?? No, of course not. We don’t care that they’ve made a basic commitment to post on Tuesdays. We’re not watching our inboxes to see when they’ll post and fuming about this lack of responsibility on the part of these artists. We just check back later. And would we want them to take down their blog and never post again because it’s impossible for them to keep their implied commitment? No.
The current reality for artists is that we need to be online. The old ways of experiencing art: museums, libraries, etc, are all still around, but there are thousands of new ways, too. Part of being an artist is participating in the conversation. Throughout history, artists have soaked up what’s current and experimented with new mediums in order to innovate. For those reasons and others, most of us want to be online in one way or another. We like hearing about our friends’ successes and sharing an insight here and there. We enjoy having new ways to connect with our audience. We like the inspiration and creativity that comes with all the access we have to our friends, to information, to inspiration. What we don’t want is the guilt.
Guilt is one of the key reasons most creatives feel unbalanced. We carry it around with us and let it fill up all the mental space we need for creativity, thinking about all the things we SHOULD be doing. Guilt makes it impossible to work with a clear mind. Since there are programmers creating apps and social networks and thousands of avenues through which to connect and reach out and share our friends’ successes and put good ideas out into the world, not being able to do it all is a fact, plain and simple. Thus, guilt is the default.
I say, let technology work for you on YOUR schedule. Participate in the conversation when you can, and when you need space, trust your artist friends to pick up where you left off. Believe in the power of community. We’ll help you, and we’ll forgive you, and we’ll come back later. Diving into your creative cave is nothing to feel guilty about. We’ll return, we promise, when you’re ready for us.
All right. Manifesto complete. Now, on the topic of technology… It should work FOR you. In order to keep your life balanced, particularly with so much to juggle, some technological systems are likely to help you keep your life in order. Here are some programs that I like best.
Daylite: This Mac software is one of the most amazing I’ve ever used. The program allows me to organize my projects, appointments, contacts and to-do’s all in one database. Between tagging and linking, one can create a network of connections so that I can see all the emails that have to do with a particular project, all the people involved, all the emails from a particular person, all the tasks that have to be done on email, and more. Using Daylite, I’ve been able to keep my work out of my inbox, and when I do have snatches of time to do work, I can easily order my tasks and get them done rather than spend all my time trying to find them.
Evernote: I use Evernote as my virtual filing cabinet. I scan mail into it, notes from events, use it to collect PDF’s and online research and more. I also use the business feature to connect with my team and make even better use of any of our research time. When I need to find a document or note, I no longer have to search through stacks of paper, but can just search Evernote to find that one thing I thought I found that one time. As long as I know a word that is in the document, Evernote can find it. It’s a fabulously powerful tool.
Journal: I keep a journal with me at all times and keep all meeting notes, journal entries, quick notes and thoughts on paper. I know, it’s not technology, but I tried note-taking on my iPad with all kinds of apps until I realized the apps weren’t the problem. I missed the feel of pen on paper. My brain needs that physical connection. Sometimes simple is better, and you have to go with what works for you.
Also, on the journaling/note-taking front: I’ve been experimenting with info-doodling, so the journal is fun to look at, with images and words all mixed together. I can make more sense of what I wrote at a glance, rather than having to wade through words and more words trying to find that one note. One excellent resource to explore info-doodling is the book, The Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown.
Habit List: Habit List is an app that helps create a daily to-do list and keep you up to date on the things you want to do more regularly. I use it to keep track of the social media things I’d like to do daily, every other day, weekly and monthly. Having reminders in this list allows me to know what to do when I have those few moments to get online and be social, to help me make the most of the time I spend.
Yearly Calendar: Also, not technology. I have this paper year-at-a-glance calendar on my desk so I can see what to expect in upcoming months, and also so I can keep track of ongoing and changing goals. Here’s a link for a PDF, if you want one too. Blank Yearly Calendar
I’ll share more tools in upcoming posts, but these are some with which to start. I find that too many tools too quickly is worse than no tools at all. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. What tools help you maintain balance? What are your thoughts on how artists can revise their relationship with technology and social media to erase guilt and allow creative fresh air?
photo credit: Viewminder via photopin cc
