Help! I'm driving on the left! But I feel more creative...

Did you know that when you make a major switch from right to left, it actually stimulates your creativity?

But this driving on the left hand side thing is kind of freaking me out.

Andy does OK in cities, but on the highway, he seems to have a bit of trouble staying in his lane. Something about how he was taught to drive by aligning his body with the exhaust line in the road (which is on the opposite side here). I don't know about any of that, because I just picked a spot on the car and lined it up with my perspective of the line down the road, and that's how I stay in my line. So I'm pretty much screwed when there's no line in the middle of the road.

Actually, I'm doing pretty well, except when I have to cross an intersection -- I forget which way to look first. And I'm finally getting the hang of these roundabouts.

Of course, I am finding that I tend to put my windshield wipers on to signal that I'm turning. That's the only part that really feels unnatural. Oh, and knowing whether or not I'm in the "fast lane" on the highway.

If you want to stimulate your own creativity, I don't recommend flying to a foreign country and re-learning how to drive. All you have to do is switch something you do frequently.

For example, as you read this, notice which hand you are using on your mouse. Usually, it's your "dominant" hand. In other words, if you're right-handed, you tend to mouse right-handed, and vice-versa for left.

But what happens if you switch and mouse with the other hand?

Go ahead and try it now.

Feels weird, doesn't it?

In fact, it feels so weird, you may have already switched back to your dominant hand.

but here's the thing -- it will feel weird for a couple of days, and then it will feel normal. And when you start using your non-dominant hand to do common everyday tasks that you do with your dominant hand (brushing your teeth, picking up a glass, mousing, waving, holding the phone, etc.) then you are switching the side of the brain that is being used.

By switching back and forth between left and right hemispheres of the brain, you actually stimulate your ability to be creative.

Now THAT's a nifty tip.

Here's something interesting I've noticed --

When I'm writing, it's all right-brain. Creative flow, inspired thought, intuition, communication. I'm a super fast typist, so I pay no attention whatsoever to the keyboard.

Which explains all my typos.

Believe it or not, during the past couple of years that I've had this blog, I've had many comments about my typos. The comments were all rude, nasty, or had a certain superior air. One person even went so far as to insult my copywriting skills (people pay me a fair chunk of change for the copywriting projects that I agree to take on) because of my typos.

I've never bothered spellchecking emails or blog posts, because to me it's more like speaking than writing. And I figured that if someone was so uptight that they were going to stop reading my blog because of typos, then they sure as heckfire weren't going to "get" any of the messages in my writing.

But someone recently posted a comment on my blog, and they were so smooth about their spell check suggestion, that I actually had to read the comment twice to realize they were asking me to run spell check. They actually presented in a way that showed how they were trying to help, instead of being critical or judgmental.

So guess what? I started running spell check on my blog.

Hmmm, that's sort of a marketing lesson, I suppose. If you want to get someone to do something, be nice and show them what's in it for them.

Now I can see that the spell-check is a left-brain complement to the right-brain activity of writing. And I love to integrate both sides of the brain -- it's challenging, fun and usually quite rewarding.

Now for your QoD:
Are you still mousing with your non-dominant hand? If so, good for you. If not, why not?

Just go for it!

(p.s. apparently I misspell "the" a lot as "hte" and "teh". Who knew?)