Quit while you're Hot

I must be feeling the heat from these soaring June temperatures in the UK this week. I’m not just hot, I’m also thinking about being hot.

The screenwriter for the tv series Mad Men, uses the phrase, “I quit whilst I’m hot”. And she doesn’t mean when she is actually hot, but when she is mentally hot. When she’s writing a script, she doesn’t keep working into the night until all of her creative juices have dried up. She stops when she’s at her creative peak and actually wanting to write more that day.

A more efficient way of working?

That sounds counter-intuitive, but for her is a very smart move. She’s teasing herself, to then sets herself to want to get right back in to it the following day. It also means that she’s incubating her ideas, letting her subconscious do the magic work overnight to give even more fresh inspiration for the next day. She then cant’ wait to get back to her keyboard the following morning. That morning procrastination feeling is given the big elbow.

It also means that she hasn’t used up all her energy at the end of the day, to then allow her to still do other things, rather than be mentally spent. Some wise words for all you perfectionists and workaholics out there…..:)

Keeping in the creative flow

I recently explained this idea to a software developer, and he immediately said that this is what he should really be doing too. Not writing code well into the night until his eyes are aching. He finds it hard to get going with his coding in the morning, so hopefully this idea will enable him to stay on a roll with his project.

What things are you working on presently that you could test this big idea out with?