Speeding up Epiphanies

I had an epiphany in the shower today.  It was something that I've been struggling with at TopFloorStudio for the last 4 months.  It was 2 ideas (one an idea one a tool to be exact) that I put together mentally, both very important ideas that had been in the forefront of my thoughts for months.

At first I was like... YES you are a genius, how did you ever think about this?  Then when I got out and driving to work I realized that in fact it wasn't that I was a genius; since these things were so obviously meant to be together you could have figured this out months ago.

It's funny how our mind sometimes goes from thinking we are geniuses to thinking we are stupid.  I bet some of you out there are thinking your ideas are dumb, but really you are genius!  Especially my readers.

My question for you, yeah you, is how do you, find epiphanies faster?  What should we be doing to find them faster? What is creativity (you don't actually have to answer that)? When do we get to congratulate ourselves for good thinking?

Why I didn't do my New Year's resolutions: my manifesto on being different

A Manifesto by Ty Hallock

I pride myself on being different.  Here is what my Christmas looks like:  I don't think we should buy a bunch of worthless stuff for one another and so I've often been the one without gifts.  I gave myself the gift of not stressing out, which means not always going all out or doing what is expected.  But when I do give gifts (which I do frequently just not consistently) they are hand-made and from the heart.  But boy am I ever pleased to receive gifts and I try to write all my thank-you's and I've never once done this without love in my heart.

What do you want to accomplish before you die? (Open Thread)

What do you want to accomplish before you die? 

 With the aid of some fellow artists and volunteers, she coated the wall with chalkboard paint. They neatly stenciled the words "Before I die I want to _______" in eight rows of 10, then bolted cups of chalk to the wall. This was an open invitation for strangers to write whatever they wanted, and the results were stunning.

 Read the full blog post from Mashable here: http://mashable.com/2013/11/17/before-i-die-artist-experiment/

 And I ask you to comment below on the question: What do you want to accomplish before you die?