Category: Thinking & Creativity

You could compare me to the young Cruella, who terrorized everyone in her school. Like Cruella, I also felt terrible whenever my parents would have to see the principal because of me. Mom and dad both had work, and they had to take time off for that. I learned to look down whenever that happened because I knew the look of disappointment in their eyes all too well.

But unlike Cruella, I met a teacher in middle school who happened to have a double degree in psychology and education. Little did I know, she had been observing my behavior whenever I was in class. I found out about it when she asked my parents to see her at the office.

At that point, my folks already assumed the worst and were ready to beg the principal to let me stay in school. Thus, they were surprised when the teacher/psychologist revealed that I might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

My teacher told my parents that there was not much to be afraid of because it was excellent that I got my diagnosis. (That was true, and I was forever grateful for that.) Instead, she believed that my issues could be resolved if I channeled all my energy into creative activities.

Growing Up

Over the years, I took on painting, belly dancing, sculpting, etc. I even became the president of a glee club in high school and college. Everyone loved that I never ran out of energy, which is most likely due to my ADHD.

I decided to study psychology in hopes of returning the kindness that my previous teacher gave me. Instead of teaching, though, I chose to provide therapy to my future clients.

As a therapist and an artist, let me share some odd yet effective ways to get creative.

Allow Yourself To Feel Bored 

I have read more than my fair share of blogs about creativity to know that many encouraged people to distract themselves from boosting their creativity. Some of these suggestions were reading a book, playing a video game, solving a Rubik’s cube, chatting with your friends, etc. Doing any of those activities is supposed to push your brain to work and hopefully help you feel creative again.

The thing was, I tried all of them when I found myself stuck in a seemingly endless rut. If I were honest, I would say that they worked for a bit and got me to get back on my feet. Unfortunately, the distracting activities were not for the long haul. They could be too distracting that you could no longer use your brain for more productive things.

What I found helpful most of the time was allowing myself to feel bored. After all, even when you experience boredom, you do not precisely stop what you are doing. Instead, you continue and make do with whatever material you have.

You know that’s not your best, yes, but you have an output. Then, you can take a nap, look at it again, and see how to improve it. Thus, boredom eventually works.

Get Criticized By Others

Receiving criticisms is one of the most hated activities that people may not even wish upon their worst enemies. It is a challenging and bitter pill to swallow, and your thick skin may not be enough to deflect one. Still, if your creative choices are not flowing, I would highly recommend letting other people criticize you or your work.

Doing so may make it seem like you are a masochist, but you can gain much information from your critics. They can pinpoint everything you are doing wrong, and you can take notes of them and analyze how to make things better. Just try not to let the criticisms get too much in your head.

Move On To Other Projects

People do not always look kindly towards individuals who do not finish what they have started. If they are not called lazy, they are called childish. If they do not seem dumb, others assume they had bitten more than they could chew and swallow. It was not a great look overall.

Despite that, whenever my clients would come to me and tell me that they had creativity issues, I would often advise them to move on to another project. Although you might not see its benefits at once, heeding this tip would allow you to get something done and feel good about yourself at some point.

More importantly, the new project may spark something in you and give you an idea of tackling your unfinished project. You could then return to it and make it exceptional.

Final Thoughts

I got diagnosed with ADHD at 16 years old. I officially became a psychologist and therapist more than a decade later. I tried my best to put my excessive energy to great use by being creative between those years. But you better believe that I hit a stump sometimes, and only the ways mentioned above helped me.

Many people told me that I was an unconventional therapist. I knew that they meant something along the lines of “odd” and “quirky,” but I took zero offense to that. That’s how I saw myself, too.

I had never been a typical mental health professional who wore sophisticated clothes and accepted clients in a posh office. Instead, I transformed an apartment downtown into a creative space. That’s where my clients could paint, draw, do pottery, or do anything artistic to express themselves.

Due to my unique methods, though, I must admit that I attracted individuals with creativity issues. They ranged from painters to dancers to project developers – practically anyone who struggled to get fresh ideas from their beautiful minds.

For such problems, I often shared three ineffective ways to boost creativity.

Stop Forcing Yourself To Be Creative

The first thing that I would strongly advise you not to force yourself to be creative. I had seen many people do this; I made the mistake of doing the same thing one too many times in my younger years. After all, people said that pressure could be the miracle you might be looking for to get the creative gears running. But that’s super unhealthy.

Why might you ask? That’s because pressuring yourself to do something could not mean that you were putting yourself under a lot of work stress. The stress could block the creative juices from flowing more, making it impossible to achieve your goal. Failing to get the job done at that point could make you feel worse than ever since you put so much effort into it.

The Solution: Relax. Tell yourself, “Okay, I have no clue how to make things work right now, but I am not going to stress myself about it because I know that it won’t help anyone.”

If you worry about seeming like you only do the bare minimum, don’t. You are merely letting your brain get some rest so that it can come up with answers to your problems later.

Assuming That You Know Everything That Will Not Work

One of my colleagues once referred a young painter to me who came to her for help because he felt like his creativity was gone. She was like, “He had a mild anxiety and could use a guide on how to process his thoughts and express them through his work.”

When I met the guy, we went through the usual motions of therapy. Then, I asked him to explain his process to me. He said, “Well, when I think of a project, I tend to get stuck when my mind comes up with all these ideas that I knew will never work. That frustrates me since they take a lot of room in my head, and the more valuable ideas don’t get enough space.”

While I was not a painter, I knew that creativity was supposed to be judgmental. Immediately dictating that something would not work even if you had never tried could block the creative juices and keep you from making anything worthwhile.

My suggestion to my client – and anyone who had similar issues – was to compile every idea that would cross your mind. Write them down if you must and evaluate everything to see which one might work at another time. Having such a list could undoubtedly save you from going back to square one even when your brain would go blank.

Listening To All The So-Called Gurus Out There 

In the 21st century, many self-proclaimed experts had come out to talk about how someone could become extra creative. Some of them have authored books or creating podcasts. Others had enough connections to become public speakers and fill arenas or get invited to talk shows on TV. Such people had different opinions regarding the topic, but their common denominator was that they all claimed to know the best way to boost your creativity.

Think about that last part for a minute. Saying that the gurus knew the best way to make you creative was like saying that they knew you better than you knew yourself. How offensive.

I would never want to question the techniques that the experts were recommending to others. They might be talking about the things that worked for them, and that’s amazing. At the same time, though, you are not them. What worked for the gurus might not work for you. Instead of listening to everything they told you to do, listen to yourself rather and learn what you must do to boost your creativity.

Final Thoughts

There are more creativity-boosting techniques you can find elsewhere that are nothing but fads. They are not as harmful as drugs or alcohol, but paying too much attention to them may keep you from realizing that only you can help yourself.

Good luck!

Everybody in this world belongs to a family. May it be biological, adoptive, or even just a group of people who you have grown with as a person, everyone has someone whom they call their family. It is human nature to yearn and seek for a family, for people who love you regardless of fault. We are programmed to be social beings and a family is our first-ever chance to become social.

Continue reading “Family: Home Improvements Beyond The House”

Most single women and bachelors are living in small apartments, pads, or condos. That’s because it is easy to maintain, lesser lease or rental fee, and they won’t be staying there for the most of the day. But then, this COVID-19 drops the bomb on Mother Earth and bam! Everybody needs to stay at home and do a self-quarantine. No business or office is open, not until there is a cure or the curve is flattened.

Continue reading “Small Home? No Problem!!! Beat The Lockdown Blues – Read This!”

Everyone dreams of being able to say that they have a guest house. Not many people are vocal about it because it seems like a silly dream to have. However, I am sure that you can relate to it even if you don’t admit it verbally. 

The reason is that owning a guest house practically shows that you have made it in life. A lot of individuals do not even have an apartment or car under their name, but you have a special place for your visitors. You do not need to live in it; it is just there anytime your friends or relatives come by, whenever that is. There is nothing more amazing than that!

The thing is, you cannot leave your guest house empty. You want it to look and feel like a home if you genuinely wish to impress your future visitors. Otherwise, they may think that you have pushed them to sleep in the storage room. 

The first step to decorating your guest house is painting the walls. Now, remember that this project is not cheap at all. You may have to cough up anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000, depending on the size of your guest house. Thus, you need to know what colors and brand will suit your new place and budget best.

When choosing your interior paint, therefore, you need to:

Know Your Pricing Options

Pick the color combinations and see which paint brands offer them based on the funds you have set aside for this. If you are looking at a mid-range rate, to be specific, you will be safe with brands like Valspar Signature, Benjamin Moore, Glidden, and Behr Premium Plus. Their prices play between $20 to $50 per gallon.

Don’t bother checking out paints that are above your budget. Doing so will either make you max out your savings or feel depressed for not being able to afford them.

Decide Between High Or Low VOC

VOCs are harmful organic chemicals used to stabilize the base paint’s consistency. However, you can opt for brands that add very little of them to their products or not at all, considering low-VOC products are more kid-friendly.

As a rule, paints that contain a high amount of VOC are less costly than the ones without or this chemical. Again, you need to consider this fact before buying interior paint.

Choose The Right Finish 

Flat, eggshell and semi-gloss are the paint finishes you need to know about. If you have to cover up a patched wall, you can go with the first one. If you don’t want a stained wall, however, you may opt for an eggshell or semi-gloss finish.

Final Thoughts

Excellent paintwork can do wonders for your dream guest house. In case space is small, for instance, you can use light colors to create the illusion that it is bigger than it seems. If you do not want to add a lot of other decorations, you may turn the walls into canvases. 

Nevertheless, set your ideals straight before you visit the paint center. Like what most people say during the election period, choose wisely.

How was your experience doing the small projects in the first half of this two-part blog? What did you enjoy more, the thought of showing your creativity or the fact that the ideas allowed you to save money?

There is no incorrect answer for the latter question, to be honest. You can be glad to be able to spend less on every project and have a gorgeous decoration as an output. That’s our goal here, after all: to show you that you don’t need to use all your savings to make your house pretty.

Still, wreaths, pots, and lamps cannot complete the revamping task that you may have in mind. You need larger items to display and become the centers of attraction when guests come. That way, you can entertain them even if you are busy cooking or doing something else for them.

Here are the other repurposing ideas that you may want to do as well.

Ladder Shelves

Metallic or wooden ladders can easily get transformed into instant bookshelves. For the folding type, you may cut the parts that prevent both sides from being extended too far. That will be great on the wall corners. A single ladder, on the other hand, is suitable for horizontal or vertical use.

Bar Headboard Rack

When you feel like changing your old spindly headboard into something that suits your contemporary lifestyle, you may turn it into a towel rack in the bathroom or kitchen. If you live in a small apartment where space is scarce, it will be cool to make a new hanging spot for your clothes out of the headboard as well.

Stool Caddy For Umbrellas

While umbrellas are helpful whether it is rainy or sunny, they have no use when you enter the house. Hence, upcycling your timeworn kitchen stool to create a unique umbrella caddy will be amazing. All you need to do is turn the chair upside down and perhaps repaint it before dropping all your umbrellas in it.

Chandelier Wine Bottles

There must be a period in your life in which you have consumed one too many drinks with your friends. You know that it is going to be a bit embarrassing to let your neighbors see you hauling a big box of empty wine bottles out of your home. The smartest thing you can make out of this situation is to tie strings on the mouth of each bottle, hold them up together, and put a lightbulb in the center. Now, you can say that you have made a chandelier by yourself.

Final Thoughts

Only the size of the outputs in this blog makes it different from the ones in the previous article. The ease of making them, though, does not change. You merely have to imagine what other things can get created out of the items that are practically trash at home.

There are more repurposing ideas that you can surely do on your own at home. How about crafting a desk or utensil organizer from scraps of wood? Why don’t you use the old TV set to build an aquarium, a dollhouse, or a bed for your pet? After all, imagination is the only restriction here.

Good luck!

Decorating a house is always fun, regardless if it is yours or a friend’s. The thought of taking out the old stuff or filling your new home with fresh items can make creative juices flow throughout your body. All of a sudden, you know which paintings will look amazing on your walls. You have an idea about what kind of vase to add as a centerpiece on your table. You may want to add pops of color here and there as well.

The only issue that hit people after days of brainstorming, though, is the fact that buying the decorations requires a lot of money. If you look for vases on Amazon, for instance, the basic glass type starts at $11.00. In case you want something with a unique shape and design, you may have to shell out up to $50.00. And if you have five tables or mantels to put a vase on, you need approximately $250.00. 

I’ll say what you must be thinking now, “That’s a lot of money for one type of decoration!”

Yes, decorating a house can be that expensive. To share my experience, the first time I did it, I ended up spending $10,000.00. I did not even go to a boujee store, mind you, and the cost still turned out like that. It was not something I wanted to go through again, so I had to think of ways to decorate my home a second time in a more affordable manner.

What a friend suggested was repurposing old items that I already had at home. That’s what I did, and I basically had to pay a couple of hundred dollars for paint, wires, and whatnot.

On the first half of this two-part blog, let me share the small repurposing ideas I had. 

Paint Can Pots

If you are like a miracle worker when it comes to plants, check your garage or the neighbor’s for empty paint cans lying around. After cleaning, piercing holes underneath, and maybe painting them, they will pass as unique flower pots.

Hose Wreath

Garden and vacuum hoses are not indestructible; that’s why many people go to the hardware store to replace these. The broken ones, however, can still be refurbished as a fancy wreath. As long as you get to tape a hose up in a perfect circle and add crafty decorations to it, the length does not matter.

Oil Lamp Bulbs

Lightbulbs can still provide luminosity to someone once you transform it into an oil lamp. It cannot be left out when talking about repurposing ideas for your home because every section of a house requires light. Each time that a bulb expires, you can fill it with any oil, drop a wick in it, and have your unique candle ready. 

Final Thoughts

The projects mentioned above are not too difficult to do, especially if you are a creative person. They will not take up your entire day. You can finish decorating your home in less than 24 hours without outsourcing the job or paying thousands of dollars. Amazing, isn’t it?

In an industry where a single construction can cost millions of dollars, it is imperative to hire a real estate developer who understands the requirements of the clients and is capable of delivering them promptly. Luckily, the knowledge of Jason Halpern, the Principal of JMH Development, regarding property expansion covers these things and more.

Where Did He Learn It All?

Jason is comparable to an apple that does not fall too far from the tree. Aside from the education that he received at the university, he has learned how to evaluate and improve lands earlier in life from his family. After all, his predecessors have been in the world of real estate for over 50 years. In truth, a few members of the Halpern clan conceptualized and organized more than 100 residential spaces specifically in Westchester County and New York City. They have also spearheaded the development of a multimillion-dollar commercial project in the former county that enclosed thousands of square meter of land.

What Has Jason Halpern Accomplished With JMH?

As the leader of the company and a role model to his employees, Jason Halpern struck several essential business transactions in recent years. All of them have enabled JMH to grow their client base and increase the number of services they offer. Because of the openness of the developer to handle various assignments, big or small, they have built marketable and housing establishments in Manhattan, Miami Beach, and Brooklyn, to name a few.

To be particular, JMH Development recently renovated Florida’s Motel Ankara, a historic structure created in 1954, and turned it into the posh Aloft South Beach. This location is not too far from the Lake Pancoast and the Collins Canal. The company teamed up with ADD, Inc., Plaza Construction, as well as Madden Real Estate Adventures to situate such a luxurious accommodation with 235 rooms.  

Another significant task that Jason Halpern’s firm accomplished was the erection of no less than 340 residential flats on the more lavish part of 184 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn. Also, JMH served as the main contractor for the reconstruction of the Townhouses of Cobble Hill. In its place, they made nine new townhouses that were ready to accept inhabitants.

What Is His Specialty?

Jason Halpern has shown a keen interest in transforming historic buildings into modern establishments. Such projects are supposed to bring a lot of profits to the proprietors or the city. He tends to search for old properties in diverse parts of the United States and start renovating them as soon as possible. Other than the fact that it allows Jason to follow his passion, it also provides a productive space for various families or entrepreneurs. Furthermore, every development project that Jason Halpern organizes gives an opportunity to the unemployed locals to earn money. It becomes a win-win situation for everybody.

Final Thoughts

Jason Halpern proves every day that you can mix business with pleasure in a wholesome fashion. As long as you have a dream, you can find a way to realize it.

Cheers!

Whether it be one at some point or simultaneous, many workers in Britain deal with anxiety, depression or stress. Not everyone likes to have a conversation about it, and yet, the issues bring about a lack of productivity in architects as they stay at home and don’t go to work. Also, the stigma associated with the subject of mental health means that most architectural practices have nothing in place to support those employees affected.

Continue reading “Architects Suffer From Stress, Depression And Anxiety Too”

There’s so much to say about architects. They are one of the most in-demand professions especially in uprising places where structures are still either being built or renovated. These specialists have stressful jobs, but they get loads of money with their work. Alongside these tags about architects, they are also dubbed as individuals with a high divorce rate; some are suffering from depression, leading an unhealthy lifestyle and even getting critical health ailments. But all these are rumors. There is no direct evidence to these claims for now. These claims were considered void when you look at the actual statistics. Data show that architects, most of them, are happily married and has a high life expectancy. But just how these rumors came about?

Continue reading “Are Architects Depressed, Mentally Unhealthy And Divorced?”