6 Myths Of Creativity

I don’t know about creativity, but I’ve found time restrictions and money can boost productivity and, sometimes, creativity. This may not be true.

FastCompany, in 2004, published the results of an experiment analyzing “12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects”. The result is the 6 myths of creativity.

In our diary study, people often thought they were most creative when they were working under severe deadline pressure. But the 12,000 aggregate days that we studied showed just the opposite: People were the least creative when they were fighting the clock. In fact, we found a kind of time-pressure hangover — when people were working under great pressure, their creativity went down not only on that day but the next two days as well. Time pressure stifles creativity because people can’t deeply engage with the problem. Creativity requires an incubation period; people need time to soak in a problem and let the ideas bubble up.

Another point in the article is that creativity shouldn’t be only for those who are ‘creative’. I find a lot of people think in that way that they aren’t ‘creative’ people and thus can’t do anything particularly creative.

I always tell them that they can. It’s just a matter of training that part of your brain and, if required, co-ordination. What do you think?

The 6 Myths Of Creativity – [FastCompany]