Mark McGuinness > Quotes

“The wonderful thing about modern technology is the amount of communication and information-sharing it facilitates. And the awful thing about modern technology is the amount of communication and information-sharing it facilitates.”
― Mark McGuinness, Time Management For Creative People

“We like to think of creativity as a space for untrammelled imagination, free from all constraints. Yet
while freedom, rule-breaking and inspiration are undoubtedly essential to the creative process, the
popular image of creativity overlooks another aspect: examine the life of any great artist and you
will find evidence of hard work, discipline and a hard-won knowledge of the rules and conventions
of their medium.”
― Mark McGuinness, Time Management For Creative People

“Choreographer Twyla Tharp, who directed the opera and dance scenes for the
film Amadeus, has this to say about the film’s portrait of Mozart:
There are no ‘natural’ geniuses… No-one worked harder than
Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of
all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose…
As Mozart himself wrote to a friend, “People err who think my art comes easily to me. I
assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as
I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through
many times.”
― Mark McGuinness, Time Management For Creative People

“Covey’s solution is to prioritise work that is important but not urgent (the blue square in the
diagram). Though this is hard to do on any given day, it is the only way to ensure you are making
progress towards your own goals and dreams, instead of merely reacting to what other people
throw at you. And over time, the more you are dealing with important things before they become
urgent, the fewer ‘urgent and important’ tasks you will have to deal with.
The most obvious way to do this is to work on your own projects first every day, even if it’s only
for half an hour. Whatever interruptions come along later, you will at least have the satisfaction of
having made some progress towards your own goals.”
― Mark McGuinness, Time Management For Creative People

“You might get up at noon and work at home in your dressing gown, in a pigsty of a living room. You might check into a different hotel room every day and work on the bed. Your creative process and working habits might look like total chaos to an outsider, but if they work for you, that’s all that matters. And there will be some method in the madness – patterns in your daily activities that are vital to your creativity. These are the things you need to do to keep your imagination alive – whether it’s sitting at a desk by 6am, using the same pen, notebook or make of computer, hitch-hiking across America, putting rotten apples in your desk so that the scent wafts into your nostrils as you work, or sitting in your favourite café with a glass of absinthe.”
― Mark McGuinness, Time Management For Creative People

“If you’re focused on getting things done, there’s a danger that you will do this indiscriminately—trying to do everything, for everyone, all the time. But when you step away from your to-do list and look at the big picture, some things strike you as more important than others, either because you care about them more, or they are areas where you can make a bigger difference, or both. From this perspective, being “busy” starts to look like an excuse, a distraction from your real business in life. Once you see your real priorities clearly, it’s harder to go back to the old way of doing things.”
― Mark McGuinness, Productivity for Creative People: How to Get Creative Work Done in an "Always on" World

“Freedom isn’t about reinventing the wheel every single day: it’s about making decisions you are happy with. Some decisions—like choosing what to eat at the restaurant—are fun to make afresh each time. But others—such as what hours/days to work—can be made once and only revisited if you don’t like the results. You’re still exercising your freedom, while freeing your mind up for more interesting activities.”
― Mark McGuinness, Productivity for Creative People: How to Get Creative Work Done in an "Always on" World

“As long as you tell yourself you need discipline to do your creative work, you are putting an unnecessary barrier between yourself and your heart’s desire. Forget discipline. Focus on desire.”
― Mark McGuinness, 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives

“temple of Kiyomizu-dera. Founded in AD 772, the huge temple is built entirely of wood, without a single nail.”
― Mark McGuinness, Resilience: Facing Down Rejection and Criticism on the Road to Success

“The most creative gigs typically don’t go to the people who stand in line and wait. They go to the ones who create something amazing without asking permission or waiting for a commission. The ones who put themselves and their work out there, knocking on doors to make things happen. The ones whose track record is (eventually) so inspiring it starts to attract opportunities as if by magic.”
― Mark McGuinness, 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives

“The creative process can look a little odd from the outside. Sometimes it looks like we’re doing nothing at all—strolling in the park, lazing on the beach, or staring into space while the rest of the office is busy being busy.”
― Mark McGuinness, Productivity for Creative People: How to Get Creative Work Done in an "Always on" World

“But if you neglect your true love, that neglect will poison everything else in your life.”
― Mark McGuinness, 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives