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The Balance of Creativity and Productivity

The Balance of Creativity and Productivity

If you read Copyblogger for any length of time, you’ll notice a theme that comes up again and again — the balance of creative “arty stuff” with pragmatic productivity.

Creativity makes our content worth reading. Strategic implementation gets us where we want to go. Each depends on the other.

On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman talked about cultivating a Pomeranian state of mind to expand your creativity. (Read the post to find out why you actually do want to do this.)

And on Tuesday, she outlined a plan to use that Pomeranian creativity to actually make something that other people want to read, watch, or listen to.

Finally, on Wednesday, our editorial team sent me their favorite writing books — a healthy mix of the arty, the crafty, and the strategic.
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This Common Belief Could Be Blocking Your Creative Potential

"Creativity is not linear." – Stefanie Flaxman

A woman brought her two Pomeranians to a barbecue I recently attended. I had never met her before, but overhearing her give the dogs commands in Norwegian, Italian, and English sparked a conversation between us and another guest.

Hamburger in hand, the other barbecue-goer explained why he’s always had trouble learning a language other than English.

“I want there to be a word-for-word translation and get stuck because it doesn’t work like that,” he said.

I resonated with that experience and thought about where that outlook might pop up in other aspects of life and business:

There’s a reasonable question virtually everyone asks when they want to start a new creative project.

We all know I like questions, but if you dedicate too much time to this one, it can be more harmful than helpful.
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2017 Content Excellence Challenge: The June Prompts

2017 Content Excellence Challenge: June Prompts

There’s something about June … maybe that it’s the sixth month, so you have that reminder that the year is half over. Or maybe it’s the June sunshine (at least in my hemisphere) that makes you want to be ultra productive so you can sneak out for a before-dinner walk.

In any event, I’m feeling rather conquer-the-worldish at the moment, and I hope you are, too. To help with that, here are our community prompts for June.

Each month in 2017, we’re giving you a pair of prompts — one to make you more productive and one to improve your creativity or writing skills.

You can jump in anytime — and let us know about your experiences in the comments!
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2017 Content Excellence Challenge: The May Prompts

Content Excellence Challenge: May Prompts

It’s May! Holy beans, the year’s nearly half over. I’m still wondering where March went, never mind April.

Here’s our pair of community prompts for this month. Each month in 2017, we’re giving you a pair of prompts — one to make you more productive, and one to improve your creativity or writing skill.

You can jump in anytime — and let us know about your experiences in the comments!
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2017 Content Excellence Challenge: The April Prompts

Content Excellence Challenge: April Prompts

It’s April! Don’t ask me where March went, because I have no idea. But it’s time once again for a pair of Content Excellence Challenge prompts.

Each month this year, we’ll give you two prompts — one intended to make you a better writer and one intended to make you a more productive one.

This month’s prompts both share a creative dimension and an ultra pragmatic one. Because creativity and pragmatism are like air and water — you need both of them to make it.
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Get Engaged to Your Audience and Customers

Get Engaged to Your Audience and Customers

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Valentine’s Day is Tuesday
Why is content marketing so hard?

Welcome to the week before Valentine’s Day! As it happens, it’s connection and engagement week at Copyblogger — and the content this week is all about how you can create a more profound bond with your audience.

On Monday we had a fun day, because we got to finally let you know about something cool we’ve been working on behind the scenes — StudioPress Sites. This new product was conceived and shaped based on our in-depth conversations with customers, and we’re super proud of it. If you’re looking to launch a new site with all the flexibility of WordPress — and without the irritating parts — check it out.
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