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Define your creative surfaces
One of the prompts in Creative Doing is Set Up Surfaces, which suggests that you create new places to store or publish your work. “Set up at least three different surfaces—one for storing your works in progress, one for sending to other people for feedback, and one for displaying your finished work,” I write. I…
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Keep interruptions brief
In a series of events that’s too detailed and boring to explain, I found out the bank sold all of my stocks. It felt very jarring. As I considered what to do next—should I just move all the money out? Wait to buy my positions at the same price I sold, or even cheaper? Reassess…
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Release and consumption cycles
If your favorite TV show releases once a week, and you want to binge watch it, here’s a simple tactic: wait until the whole season is out. All it takes is restraint. We live in a time where there’s no shortage of distractions, so that can be useful here as well. Here’s how I apply…
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Early and late are relative
When you book a flight, you know you need to get to the airport by a certain time. If you need to get there four hours ahead of boarding time to feel comfortable, anything less than that buffer feels late. Even if you arrive two hours before boarding, you may feel like you should’ve been…
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Pokémon published Red and Green before making them perfect
It took Game Freak six years to develop the first Pokémon games, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green. It took four years longer than the original release date. Still, there were glitches, bugs, and errors. The artwork in the game (e.g., sprites) needed to be updated to match the more refined artwork from the packaging and…
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Pokémon, collection, and connection
When Satoshi Tajiri first came up with the idea for Pokémon, he was fueled by two inspirations. The first was his childhood passion for collecting bugs. The second was the Nintendo Gameboy’s Link Cable. Satoshi imagined bugs crawling back and forth between the Link Cable, and children being able to collect, compete, and connect. Later…
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Change your hands, change your psychology
When you want to receive energy and be open to what’s around you, rotate your palms up to the sky. Hold them there for as long as you like. When you want to ground your energy and be calm, rotate your palms down to the ground. You can elaborate on this, and put your palms…
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The six lean, long, years of starting up Pokémon
The Pokémon Company is owned by three companies. One company is Game Freak, which is owned by the person who came up with the original idea for Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri. Game Freak developed the original Pokémon video games, and owns roughly ⅓ of the company. In 1990, Satoshi approached Nintendo to publish and distribute the…