I read about an idea from Tim Ferriss’s book Tools of Titans which is the concept of the Jar of Awesome. The intent of this jar is that whenever something awesome happens, you jot a note down and place it in the jar of awesome. Tim recommends once a day as a minimum, with the qualifications for something being awesome being exceptionally low, even “I didn’t die today” is grounds for going in the jar of awesome.
There are already three notes placed into my Jar of Awesome.
- A bird laid eggs and built a nest on my balcony.
- I made an email sign-up list and put it up on my blog.
- This one is Chelsea’s: I coloured the Jar of Awesome!
This is a good tool for showing appreciation for the day and remembering back on the funny little things that have happened in your life. Such an easy thing to do to brighten the day!
So since I drew up the jar of awesome, it clearly needed to be coloured in, so I purchased some colouring pencils. Art is something I used to like doing, but then the interest slowly dwindled to nothing. So I bought the pencils, Chelsea coloured the jar of awesome, and added some excellent features such as musical notes and hearts!
While Chelsea was colouring, I drew up whatever was in front of me. Like most good art, I just watched where it took me, and somehow the pineapple ended up in front of a murderous knife! How shocking, but also fun!
Drawing is a great tool to get out of the seriousness of life. Make some art, trust the creative experience and remember, art is never finished, it just stops in interesting places! We are all artists, musicians, and creative, brilliant people. However, we need to get out of the way and allow the creativity to flow. My logic behind this is to lower expectations. Once perfection is not expected, then fun and creativity can happen.
Adam