creative maverick

The human animal: biological basis of mate choice (or why men like to show off their mobile phones)

John — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:14:44 +0000

I went to a fascinating talk at London Zoo this week about how evolution and our biology affect who we fancy and who we settle down with. The speakers were Professor Robin Dunbar from Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University and Professor Karl Grammer from Department for

Screw Work Let’s Play: The Play Toolkit

John — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:59:50 +0000

I’ve been quiet here on Creative Maverick as I’ve been very busy elsewhere with a new blog on a similar topic. My book Screw Work Let’s Play: How to do what you love and get paid for it is published by Prentice Hall in 9 weeks’ time. And

A business card with no contact details

John — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:14:51 +0000

I love this business card belonging to web designer and social media consultant San Sharma. It has no contact details whatsoever! It gets some strange reactions though as San explains,

My business card makes people think I work for Google and/or wonder what the “I’m feeling lucky” button does

Of course, it only works if you have a relatively rare name (ie, not for me). For more

The Annual Clowns Blessing

John — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:26:29 +0000

Every year at the Holy Trinity Church in East London, there is a service held to bless working clowns and commemorate the clowns that died in the previous year. The mix of religious service and being surrounded by outlandish clowns makes it quite an experience. What struck me was just

The secret to your salvation (but you’re not going to like it)

John — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:06:24 +0000

Why don’t people change? Why do we struggle on with the same old problems, wanting to be happier, more successful, to have better relationships, but not getting very far? To explain why I think this is, I need to talk about Bono, lead singer of U2.

How to have your best year yet - without New Year resolutions or SMART goals

John — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:46:53 +0000

For a lot of us, particularly creative people, conventional goal setting and planning techniques just don’t work. So how do we engineer a great year for ourselves without all that SMART goal crap? One doing the whole variety of stuff we enjoy while making

Go on, admit it; you like your job!

John — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:30:05 +0000

Being a careers coach I inevitably meet a lot of people unhappy in their job who want to do something else. But I also occasionally meet people (at social events) who love their job. And it’s funny how shy they are about it. I ask what they

A simple technique to help you focus

John — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:10:32 +0000

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 (the Pomodoro is the timer)
Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

Matt Whyman on Sustainable Writing

John — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:57:19 +0000

I first met novelist Matt Whyman when he gave a talk at London Writers’ Club on what he calls Sustainable Writing. He very kindly agreed to write this guest blog post on the topic.

Sustainable Writing

When it comes to filling in forms, I never enter ‘novelist’ under my profession. Nor

Did the Creative Maverick experiment work?

John — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:52:34 +0000

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”.