It is important to know which side of your brain you want to use for which task.
My father is a retired professor of educational psychology and he used to talk about left and right brains and how the tendency for people to be governed primarily by one side of the other.
As I understand it, and even if it is the other way around, it doesn’t matter, the left brain is the analytical side and the right brain is the creative side. I am right handed and probably see out of the right eye, so the theory is that folks like this are analytical or left brained. I don’t think that holds true.
But, let us just assume that the left brain is analytical and the right creative, with all of the ups and downs of emotional influence carries with it. Being right brained and thinking creatively is a habit and if you are like me this is what you are used to thinking about.
In the arts, especially music and even more so singing opera, you are connecting your emotions to your intellect and memorization together constantly. Artists are right brained, assuming of course that the right brain is the creative side. What this means is that while artists must use some of the left brain to do the tedium it takes to master an instrument or memorize music, in general all artists are right brained simply from the way that work is carried out. After all the purpose of the art is expression and it really has little to do with logic.
But this causes problems for artists because much of the requirements of living life on earth have to do with performing left brain tasks, which for most artists is like placing them in a dungeon and throwing away the key.
So how can an artist make the switch and master his left brain and use it as well as the right?
Well I believe it starts with awareness and separation. Before switching brains, you must decide and choose to do it and decide that during a given period of time you are going to work with your left brain, meaning, shutting down your emotions, taking your personality out of it and getting down to the numbers, the boring, tedious and unfulfilling tasks of the analytical realm.
It is a different kind of work from being creative. The good news is, you know when you are done.
This is a critical point to master. In order to really be able to think and create clearly, it helps if the left brain tasks are done. To perform well creatively you must have your back free and clear of pressures weighing on you and many of those can be reduced when you have those left brain tasks done.
I sometimes get sick thinking of doing left brain work, It bores me so. But, I have to do it and I must find a way to do it that doesn’t turn me into a grey person mentally.
I think the only way to do this is to block out specific times, specify certain tasks for those times and get them done in an orderly way so that you know what to do when and establish a pattern so you know that when you say you will do something you will do it, simply switching off the right brain for a couple of hours and getting the boring, awful, tedious stuff done. Once you are in the state of concentration I believe you can actually enjoy it and for sure having those tasks done improves the quality of life for everyone.
For creative people, it is important to switch off the right brain and use the left brain a bit more often.