In less than three weeks, over 200,000 people will allow themselves to go a little crazy for a month. They will gnash their teeth, smash their heads, and possibly destroy their livers. What can we learn from them?

Focus is as elusive as a ghost and slippery as a sturgeon, here one minute and gone the next. We all want to be focused on whatever we’re working on, but emails, cell phones, and the repo man all beg for our attention like neglected children.

This post details sixteen ways to increase focus, attention, and mindfulness.

Why do some people have all the good ideas? Are they born with a superior brain? Do they have a muse on a leash? Are they just darn lucky?

The answer is shockingly simple. Find out more…

When you start a project, what do you call it?
Imagine you’re just getting started with a new creative work. If it’s a book, do you say “this story I’m doing about guilt, fear, and cakes,’ or is it “The Ministry of Fear?” If a painting, do you say ‘this thing  with a bearded guy and a couple dead people’ or “The House of  Death“?
Which sounds less like an impotent attempt to describe a creative work?
Which seems more real?
No matter what kind of project you’re working on, giving it a concrete, …

The last post was fun to write, so without further ado about nothing, let’s continue the list. Here we go with 14 more ways to generate ideas, increase creativity, cure cancer, end all wars…you get the idea.
17. Travel Travel will give your brain a chance to go wild. New places, sights, smells, gravitational pulls, all these will give you a ton of new ideas. Remember, travel doesn’t mean going to the other side of the world. Try going to a nearby town, a place you’ve never or rarely been. Or …

Do you ever feel like someone replaced your brain with a cinder block?
Has your river of brainy brilliance turned to a sluice of stumped stupidity?
No matter what kind of work you do, sometimes you run into a wall; the ideas dry up and you feel anything but creative. It happens to everyone. Don’t worry. You’re not alone. You need a break. You need a strategy. You need a saga.
Here’s your saga, delivered in 16 steaming hot points. Use them, abuse them, but do tell me how they work for you.
1. …

Buddhists talk about the mind being a spastic, unruly monkey. When the monkey is under control, it’s a wonderful pet, but give it the chance, and it will bounce around, looking for bananas and mischief. Getting it under control requires a wide variety of tricks and tranquilizers (television, anyone?).

For creative types, we need to have zen-like control of our mind. However, if you’re not the mediating, yoga-ing zen type, journaling provides the fastest way to get the monkey under control.