Exhausted by ideas?
Do you get exhausted by the sheer volume of ideas out there for you to explore?
I know I do. Sometimes being an explorer of ideas is as shattering as exploring the jungle!
Exploring ideas is addictive too. Part of you has to 'know'. It drives you on.
But that all-consuming passion for knowledge, innovation, and the electrifying buzz of a new idea can make your exploration of ideas so shallow and fleeting. You rush from idea to idea to idea. At the end of the day you can feel so tired. The very sight of your bulging bookshelves exacerbates the feeling. The thought of your computer and the internet can make you feel almost sick. It represents all those ideas. All the ideas you've covered. And all those ideas you know nothing about. There's so much!
This rapid, shallow exploration... skimming over the surface of ideas... worried me until I read about about the Creative Generalist. That gives it a context and a purpose that I had lost sight of. We talk about 'surfing' the internet, and that is such a great metaphor for this exploration of ideas.
I recently started using Stumbleupon. You open an account, let them know your preferences, install the tool bar on your browser and hit the Stumble button when you want to start 'stumbling'. You are then taken to websites related to your preferences. I put down self development and psychology under my preferences. Everytime I hit the Stumble button they deliver me to a new website related to either psychology or personal development. You can give the site a thumbs up or a thumbs down according to whether you like it or don't like it. And that enables Stumbleupon to refine the process of delivering sites you will probably like.
I find myself hitting the button and visiting 10 different sites in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes. I've discovered some very interesting blogs and web resources. Many put me to shame. :-)
But that process of butterfly hopping from site to site is quite appealing, and good fun when you have nothing better to do. It's a little too randomly general though as you are not really following up your own idea trails. Usually when you are surfing you land on a site, then you see a link to something else and follow that up, that in turn leads you somewhere else. That is quite an organic way of thinking like a Creative Generalist.
Stumbleupon though delivers you to places that you have no real clue as to where you are going other than the general theme. This is great when it takes you to places that you know you would probably not have found otherwise. And possibly that can lead to some real 'out of the blue' insights and combinations of ideas.
But what of that exhaustion that occurs? The sheer overwhelm of information and possibilities?
I think the only thing you can do is try to recognise and manage your limits. I wrote about the Multiple Paradigm Tolerance Factor... and that mainly involved having an awareness of the mental stress that can occur from exploring multiple paradigms. Idea exhaustion is similar but more about stress from burn out than identity crisis.
So you just have to figure out what your threshold is and try and stay within your energy levels. Try and get away from the obsession later in the day when your energy is less. Do your exploring in the morning when you are fresh. Or whatever works best for you.
If you create limits for yourself, you will have structure that will support you and lessen the likelihood of you being overwhelmed by the volume of ideas you cover. Build in suitable rest time and 'real life' time with your friends and family being normal. You'll be a better idea surfer then.
I know I do. Sometimes being an explorer of ideas is as shattering as exploring the jungle!
Exploring ideas is addictive too. Part of you has to 'know'. It drives you on.
But that all-consuming passion for knowledge, innovation, and the electrifying buzz of a new idea can make your exploration of ideas so shallow and fleeting. You rush from idea to idea to idea. At the end of the day you can feel so tired. The very sight of your bulging bookshelves exacerbates the feeling. The thought of your computer and the internet can make you feel almost sick. It represents all those ideas. All the ideas you've covered. And all those ideas you know nothing about. There's so much!
This rapid, shallow exploration... skimming over the surface of ideas... worried me until I read about about the Creative Generalist. That gives it a context and a purpose that I had lost sight of. We talk about 'surfing' the internet, and that is such a great metaphor for this exploration of ideas.
I recently started using Stumbleupon. You open an account, let them know your preferences, install the tool bar on your browser and hit the Stumble button when you want to start 'stumbling'. You are then taken to websites related to your preferences. I put down self development and psychology under my preferences. Everytime I hit the Stumble button they deliver me to a new website related to either psychology or personal development. You can give the site a thumbs up or a thumbs down according to whether you like it or don't like it. And that enables Stumbleupon to refine the process of delivering sites you will probably like.
I find myself hitting the button and visiting 10 different sites in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes. I've discovered some very interesting blogs and web resources. Many put me to shame. :-)
But that process of butterfly hopping from site to site is quite appealing, and good fun when you have nothing better to do. It's a little too randomly general though as you are not really following up your own idea trails. Usually when you are surfing you land on a site, then you see a link to something else and follow that up, that in turn leads you somewhere else. That is quite an organic way of thinking like a Creative Generalist.
Stumbleupon though delivers you to places that you have no real clue as to where you are going other than the general theme. This is great when it takes you to places that you know you would probably not have found otherwise. And possibly that can lead to some real 'out of the blue' insights and combinations of ideas.
But what of that exhaustion that occurs? The sheer overwhelm of information and possibilities?
I think the only thing you can do is try to recognise and manage your limits. I wrote about the Multiple Paradigm Tolerance Factor... and that mainly involved having an awareness of the mental stress that can occur from exploring multiple paradigms. Idea exhaustion is similar but more about stress from burn out than identity crisis.
So you just have to figure out what your threshold is and try and stay within your energy levels. Try and get away from the obsession later in the day when your energy is less. Do your exploring in the morning when you are fresh. Or whatever works best for you.
If you create limits for yourself, you will have structure that will support you and lessen the likelihood of you being overwhelmed by the volume of ideas you cover. Build in suitable rest time and 'real life' time with your friends and family being normal. You'll be a better idea surfer then.
