Will AI soon be taking your job? Not if you develop these skills. Will your job soon be automated? We are in the early tremors of a seismic shift in creative work, and in society as a whole. Writers, artists, musicians, designers.. no creative profession feels safe from this technology. This month, in an interesting article…

You can’t make your best work by thinking about it. So say goodbye to perfectionism, and begin. — Most creatives tend to be perfectionists. I certainly am, and it’s cost me a lot over the years. I’ve written about that in Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist. Perfrctionism is the devil perched on your shoulder, forever whispering that your work isn’t good enough. It can stop you starting work — or ever finishing it, and…

(Even though we often feel we do!) — We all feel we need permission at times. We crave that external stamp of approval. And we wait — fruitlessly — for the invitation to arrive in the post, to finally be invited to the top table, the elite club where you’re allowed to simply write what you want to write, make the work you want to make. …

How to make time for the creative work you really want to do. — It’s a slippery thing, time. We all get the same amount, yet none of us feel we have enough of it. And what we have seems to slip through our hands. In coaching sessions, client after client expresses disappointment that they’ve wasted time, and got nothing done. As a coach working with creative professionals, I…

More time. More focus. More money. And less mistakes — We all have stories we tell ourselves. Stories that become so ingrained we stop seeing them as stories, and believe they are just the truth. For most of my working life, this was one of mine: I thrive on a degree of chaos. A messy workspace is a creative workspace. I don’t know if that was ever…

All you really need is a pen and paper. But if you’re serious about your craft, these tools will help you do more — and earn more — You don’t need anything fancy to start writing. It’s important to say this from the start. Some of the greatest novels of all time were scratched out with a quill. I wouldn’t advise going quite so retro, but all you really need to begin is a pen and some paper. My pen is a Pilot V5 (I have…

It’s easy to forget that creative work is an adventure in itself. If you’re stuck or jaded, here’s how to remind yourself. — Lost that sparkle? There is a point, in every book or major writing project I’ve ever worked on, when it feels like a slog. When I wake up with a dread of facing the page again, writing about the same thing, tussling with the same seemingly intractable problems. If you feel this way…

Life is rarely linear. Follow your interests, create lots of dots, and it will all connect up later — “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” — Steve Jobs The accidental creative A while ago now, I had a coaching conversation with a client that stuck with me. She is an…

Why conventional productivity systems often fail us, and what you need to do instead to be an inspired writer, artist, creator — My productivity obsession (and how it failed) What does productivity look like, for creatives? In the late nineties, this became an urgent question for me. After my son was born, I could no longer work where and when I wanted. My hours were constrained by the availability of childcare, and later by his school timetable. …