my body care

For the life of me, I could never remember if creative types
or analytical types were left brain or right brain.

Then one day, years ago, I found a cartoon that showed two
people at a party, a woman and a man. The woman is facing the
viewer and asks the man, “I can’t remember. Are accountants
left brain or right brain?” The man’s back is to the viewer.
And his head above his ears veers sharply to the left.

I’m a little of both, analytical and creative. I can pretty
much turn one on or off at will, like I’m turning on a faucet.
Sometimes, though, I need to get into the “other mode” more
quickly than usual, and I need some tricks to get there.
For me, this usually happens when I need to get creative
quickly.

I have a colleague who is mostly creative, but she is often
alled upon in her work to think more analytically. She has
some tricks to help her get there as well.

A few years ago, I read a great story that highlighted how
our brains work and how putting it through certain types of
“exercise” will help us produce more work output.
A woman wrote an article about her work as a marketing person.
She had to pump out a lot of creative ideas one after the
other. But just like writers get writer’s block,
she got creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after
her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had
left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper,
markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice
about it, she started playing with the paper, glue, and glitter,
making all kinds of creative pictures and shapes. After
doing this for about 30 minutes, she went to her office to
work.

Can you guess what happened? She was ultra-productive that
day! She could hardly believe how much work she got done and
how well it turned out. Recalling her creativity session
earlier that morning, she decided to do something creative at
the beginning of every work day for about 30 minutes. Over time,
she found this to be a key to her success and for pumping out
many good productive ideas and projects.

I was so intrigued by this story that now I keep art supplies
near my writing projects at home. Before starting to write for
whatever book or project I’m working on, I draw with color
pencils on a drawing pad. It gets my creative juices flowing.

My creative colleague who needs to tap into her analytical side
will count tiles. (Different, yes, but it works for her.) When
we discussed this in a group, I suggested doing Sudoku puzzles
to exercise the left brain.

As you can guess, I’m not of the management mindset that
says doing these types of activities during the work day is a
waste of time or goofing off. On the contrary, I believe
creative or analytical exercises that get our brains in gear
and lead us to produce more high quality work is well worth the
time. Therefore, I’m challenging managers everywhere to change
their thinking on this topic to encourage right- and left-brain
exercises during the start of the workday, or at the start of
working on a project.

Furthermore, I’m also of the “camp” that believes every business
person should spend 30 minutes early in the work day reading
business newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal or
Investor’s Business Daily, and/or the business section of your
metropolitan paper. Regarding this topic, the difference between
most people and me is that most people believe this should be
done “on a person’s own time,” while I believe it should be
done during the work day. But, hey, that’s another topic
for another time!

© 2006 Borgeson Consulting, Inc.

Glory Borgeson is a business coach and consultant, and the president of
Borgeson Consulting, Inc. She specializes in working with executives in the
“honeymoon phase” of a new position (typically the first two years)
to coach them to success. Glory is the newly appointed executive’s
Secret Weapon!. Top athletes have a coach; why not you?

Click here for Borgeson Consulting, Inc.

This article was originally published in The Business Express, Borgeson’s
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