Great ideas come from unexpected places. Keep that in mind. The Eureka! inspiring idea may just be staring you in the face right now but you don’t even know it.

We have to first dispel the notion that an idea is a single thing. An idea is a process. What you call the light bulb moment actually doesn’t just happen. It started a while back. Maybe a year, maybe a day. Ultimately, ideas are cobbled over time, built into giant towers from small scraps.

Inspiration is often elusive, you need to consciously take steps to get that idea.

Thankfully, there are some things you can do to force the idea to the fore.

Create the environment

It’s important that the environment is right. Ideas are more likely to jump at you when you are around new things. Also emotions are important, positive emotions and high spirits are more likely to inspire ideas. Within is influenced by without, ideas come from both places.

Remix

Nothing is new under the Sun is a favourite Yoruba saying and it’s very true. To generate seemingly new ideas, your best bet is to remix. Arrange old scraps and mold into something new and sparkling.

Let it go

Give up. Sometimes you have to let it go before it comes. You shouldn’t keep banging your head against the wall. Forget about that idea or that thing niggling at the fringe of your mind threatening to be the idea you’ve been waiting for but not quite taking shape. Breathe in, breath out. Think other things, do routine tasks.

Let ideas have sex

You have these ideas that you don’t find quite banging, you haven’t quite gotten what you want. The solution to the problem is idea intercourse. They will likely birth something new. Even when your two ideas are seemingly unrelated. You can put your creative juices to use and come up with something wonderful.

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Kindly share your thoughts too.

Fashion isn’t all about sewing and making garments. The fashion industry in Nigeria accommodates quite a lot of niches.

The business of looks in Nigeria is huge, with a lot of glamour and glitz. Flooded, yet so much untapped potentials. But that’s not for this particular piece.

Here, we are doing an overview of the Nigerian fashion scene, the different niches that one aspiring to a career in fashion may go into.

It is interesting to note that even within each categories are sub categories. It’s a big world out there if you are interested in the fashion industry. Your best bet is to pick a niche and work within it rather than trying to do all.

Journalists- Here we have the fashion bloggers, editors, writers etc. It is a thriving section of the fashion industry as we have magazines, blogs and various news articles dedicated to fashion.

Stylists– A person may hire a stylist to dress them for a red carpet event or for their private life. A fashion stylist selects clothing and accessories for a person or event/occasion. Their work is to put together what the designers have done in a way that projects personality, style and the theme of the event/occasion. The job description varies widely as some stylists work on exclusive projects like music videos or film projects, acting as a costume designer. The Style Infidel/ Tosin Ogundadegbe Rhoda Ebun, Zedeye, Jane Michael Ekanem are popular Nigerian stylists that have made it to the news from styling celebrities.

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You definitely can, just keep trying. The journey to being a better person takes some work

Hello,

You can exhibit your creative genius on The Online Gallery.

The Kurating team is currently accepting entries for the first exhibition tagged ‘Unusual’.

You can exhibit any creative endeavour that can be captured digitally (text, video, audio, picture).

The jury is looking out for creatively unique and original works.

Please read what you should know before you submit your work.

Timeline

Entries close on the 6th of April 2017.
Entrants whose works have been selected by the jury will be notified on the 25th of April 2017.
Exhibition of selected works starts on the 27th of April 2017.
Exhibition runs for four weeks and works will be archived thereafter.

Visit the Kurating website for more information.

A writer isn’t in the best position to teach on how to stop procrastination. It took me almost 36 hours to get down to writing this, and this was after I had gotten all the background work done. I just kept putting it off for no good reason. 36 hours is actually an improvement for me. I have put tasks off for weeks, months. Some things are even infinitely on the pending list. I just know that I’ll get around to it tomorrow, but tomorrow never ends. Tomorrow is a favourite word for us procrastinating expats. We leave tasks undone while faffing, reading social media updates, sorting file folders that can wait, or chatting (my personal favourite).

As a matter of fact, I think almost everyone procrastinates, we just do it in varying degrees. Some of us are really good and grapple with it hourly while some only enjoy the complacency of procrastination just once in a while. I like to justify my procrastination with ‘I’m naturally lazy.’

I have managed to conquer procrastination in certain situations, but I’m still slowly but surely trying to reduce it to the barest minimum. So, I have decided to share a few how-to-stop-procrastinating tips that have worked for me. I derived these tips from experience and from a little bit of research.

Start– This is the best tip, just start. Half the time, once you start you have overcome the procrastination.

Reminders– Set reminders. I do this and then I attach little motivative notes to the reminder. The notes read something like ‘If you don’t write that article, you are losing out on…’ I am sure you get the idea.

Buddy- Get a motivating friend. Talk about your work with them and undertake to motivate each other.

Announce- Announcing your projects will motivate you to get started on them. Tell acquaintances, friends, colleagues etc. As they ask about the progress, you will be motivated to work on the project.

You’re not lazy- Okay, maybe you are, but don’t accept it as a way of life and use it as excuse to not get work done.

Five minutes rule – Similar to Starting, the Five minutes rule states that you dedicate five minutes of your time to just getting started. Just say, ‘let me spend five minutes on this’. Most of the time the stipulated five minutes will be extended and you will end up completing a substantial part of the task or at least having something to go on from.

Cut distractions- What’s your distraction? Chat? Gist? Social networks? Just cut the distractions off for a while.

You can read the rest of the article and others to improve your creativity