creative maverick

I’ve just been reading about the Pomodoro Technique which is a simple system to improve productivity created by Francesco Cirillo. Here’s a summary of the technique as shown on the website:
The basic unit of work in the Pomodoro Technique™ can be split into five simple steps:

Choose a task to be accomplished
Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes [...]

I started this blog exactly one year ago and billed it as a one year experiment in creative living - an experiment to do what I love doing most, worry a little less about where it might lead, and see if I can end up getting “paid to play”.
Did it work?
Well in April of this [...]

Would you like to know where to focus your work so that you can get paid for doing what you love? The key is to find your “moment of magic”.
Think back to a recent time in your work that stands out as a great moment; one when you did something you know you are great [...]

Tom Hodgkinson is editor of bi-annual magazine The Idler and author of several excellent books including How To Be Idle, How To Be Free, and The Idle Parent.
He very kindly agreed to be interviewed for my upcoming book about how to get paid to play.
We did the interview as a video call over Skype and [...]

It’s funny that my first reaction this morning after last night’s talk by San Sharma at Scanners Night on Social Media is to quit 2 social networking sites.
What I’ve realised is that if I want to play all day and get paid, it’s essential I surround myself with people of similar values - people who [...]

If you’re putting a lot of effort into your work for what you get back, chances are you’re “out of flow”.
Being “in flow” is about bullding your working life around the things that suit your personality naturally. The result is you end up enjoying your work you so much you actually feel guilty getting paid [...]

As I work on my proposal for a book on the themes of this blog, I’m starting to realise how important play is. To play all day and get paid sounds like the ultimate hedonism and while it should be fun, there is something more to this.
Why play?
When children play, they are learning about themselves [...]

Last night I drove through 3 hours of snow to get back from Suffolk where I had taken the 3 day Lightning Process training. I had plenty of time to reflect on the training and even use it in my head as the snow got thicker, visibility dropped and the traffic on the roads slowed [...]

I want to work a maximum of 4 hours per day (see this earlier post) and I’m guessing this might appeal to a lot of other people too. Given that the average office worker only does 90 minutes of genuinely useful work per day, I reckon I should do just fine on 4 hours of [...]

I want to work a 4 hour day as I wrote in the previous post. There’s a snag here. I am currently doing even more than a standard 8 hour working day - sometimes only switching off my computer late at night.
If I want a different result, I will need to change what I’m doing. [...]