Some people seem to be creative in everything they do – they paint, write poems, and create sculptures. Whereas some of us would sit down and have a blank canvas, blank sheet of paper, and a lump of clay. Why is it that some people seem to be able to get their creative juices flowing at will, and others cannot start?
Whether for leisure or for business, many of us wish we were more creative. For some, creativity feels new, while others will feel they are rediscovering a lost creativity. Whichever camp you fall into, the following ideas can help get your creativity flowing.
Step 1 – Break Your Habits
Over time we all develop habits and routines. These can be anything from how we brush our teeth to how we make our coffee, or how we write our emails. Habits are useful because they save us time, and by keeping things simple they also save us energy. However, the flip-side of habits is that they can reduce creativity.
Breaking up habits and routines, even the most mundane kinds of them, helps to reinvigorate our minds. Having a routine means not having to think about that activity very much. Breaking that routine means having to think about it again. By breaking a routine we break up our set ways of thinking, allowing us to come up with new approaches to the same old thing.
The great thing is that even by breaking up a simple routine, we put ourselves in a slightly less predictable mindset. By doing this, we open ourselves up to more creative ways of thinking. It may seem strange to think that changing which wrist you usually put your watch on can make you think more creatively, but you might be surprised by the results if you give it a go.
The trick to keeping yourself in that creative mindset is not to allow a new routine to replace the old one. If you start wearing your watch on your right wrist because you always used to wear it on your left, don’t continue to wear it on your right wrist forever. Switch from one wrist to the other every few days, or try not wearing it at all. Simple things like this can help to keep your mind in a more creative frame.
Step 2 – Invent Simple Brainstorming Games
Brainstorming is a very common way of coming up with ideas, but it’s usually done in the same familiar way: one idea is written in the middle of the page, and then we think of spin-off ideas that we then write in various places around the central idea. This is called mind-mapping. There’s nothing wrong with this approach in itself. The only thing that’s wrong is when you use this approach and nothing else.
Instead of doing a brainstorm in the traditional way, it’s easy to come up with simple rules for your own brainstorming games. For example, you could do a word association brainstorm where each new word has to start with the last letter of the previous word, or you could limit yourself to words of eight letters or more.
Such simple ideas may seem silly, but they are practical ways of generating unexpected new thoughts. By not allowing yourself to come up with the most obvious responses or answers you force yourself to think more creatively, breaking out of your usual thought processes.
For some great anecdotes and lessons in creative thinking, check out One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking by Dave Trott.
Step 3 – Write All Of Your Ideas Down
Often after we come up with new ideas, we forget about them or even throw them away when we think they’re no good. Whatever you do, don’t throw anything away! Instead, get a notepad and keep all of your ideas in it. After a short while you’ll have quite a lot of ideas written down in your notepad – some of them you might think are bad and others good, but this doesn’t matter.
Once you have a few pages of ideas going back a little while, you can start to go through your notepad from time to time and re-read your old ideas. When returning to old ideas you bring new perspectives. These new perspectives can allow you to take your old ideas in new and unexpected directions. In this way it’s possible to turn useless old ideas into useful new ones simply by letting time pass! Give it a go and see what results you get.
For more information on this I would recommend reading Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser.
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