Exploratory Writing: Everyday magic for life and work

This is the foundation of learning: the willingness to entertain the possibility that you might be wrong, that there might be a better way to do things. Paradoxically it’s a sign of inner confidence: it’s the most insecure people who resist the idea of being wrong most strenuously. Being comfortable with being wrong is at the root of what psycholog

Draw the spine of a fish as above, but rather than making its head a problem that needs understanding and fixing, instead try putting a desired outcome there and then work backwards to see what might contribute to it. Imagine for example that in the diagram above, the text above the head of the fish had read: ‘timely delivery of project’. Then set

Agency = capacity for making things happen, for impacting the world. Intention = deliberately choosing what, out of the million different things you COULD make happen today, or in your lifetime, you are going to attempt. Attention = focusing your mind and energy on your chosen priority in a consistent and persistent way in order to make those inten

Think about something you need to produce that you’d usually look up online: a presentation, a report, a job description, a meal plan. Instead of reaching for the search box, pause a second. Grab a notepad and pen instead, and spend six minutes or so freewriting about what it is you want to achieve. Who is this for and what do they need? What’s the

When it comes to communicating your ideas to other people, being able to show them what you mean visually is massively more impactful and effective than trying to describe it in words. And if you can create a distinctive model that you can copyright and share, and which other people use and share with a nod to you, you have developed a distinctive

In this writing session, your Chimp gets its day. Think about a situation that’s causing you some negative emotion – it could be a conflict, a frustration with yourself or others, or something you’re angry or ashamed about. (Be sensible here – this is everyday magic for everyday frustrations, so choose something manageable, not real trauma where su

Just as with agency, intention and attention in Chapter 5, I believe there are three interconnected but distinct principles of playfulness at work, all of which lend themselves well to an exploratory writing approach: creativity, originality and problem solving.

Stories are the way that we make sense of the world; the wider process by which we construct those stories is known as sensemaking. When we engage in sensemaking we select the elements of experience to which we will pay attention, and we begin to link those experiences relationally: B happened because of A; if X, then Y.

When Professor Steve Peters, author of The Chimp Paradox, was working with the GB Olympic cycling team he had a rule: athletes could come and complain to him, but if they did, they had to complain for 15 minutes without stopping.

If you and I were sitting together and able to do this exercise in person – wouldn’t that be great? – I’d simply ask you to take a walk outside and bring me back three things. They could literally be three things you bring back into the room with you or they might just be something you see that you come back to tell me about. So you might bring me