Passive listening is letting the other person speak. Active listening is helping the other person communicate their message to you.

Active listening and yesterday’s post to slow down share a common thread: when you take the time to give your full attention to what is occurring in the present moment, you open yourself up to experiencing something new and expand your awareness of possibility.

When you truly listen to someone, they will open up in ways you might not expect.

Perhaps we also need active internet reading… considering that typical high-literacy readers read at most 28% of the words during a visit to a webpage. I would tell you more, but I only skimmed the article.

A bit of good advice came to me today from the Creative Generalist (via Leslie’s super premium blog) – especially needed after working non-stop: the best way to boost creativity is to slow down, because:

1. efficiency kills creativity
2. speed denies you any change to think
3. systems, by definition, throttle innovation
4. a firm, disciplined focus stops people going off on tangents (which is where most creative ideas will be found)
5. cutting costs often cuts out innovation too

Personally, I still want to know the where do you draw the line between getting things done, and making space to be creative? Or is it more a question of what is required for the task at hand?

Seems like I’m not the only one trying to figure out how to get things done…