How to Get Creative
The Organize it weblog has a two part series about how to get creative. The first part of the series covers the “tools” to help facilitate the process, and the second part covers “where” to get creative.
Creativity is all about coming up with new ideas, interpretations and methods and involves thinking and exploring what goes through your mind. It’s a quality that should be encouraged at all walks of life. You need to feed your creative side with inspirational material, give it the time and attention is needs. Below are the 5 key variables you need in place to get those creative juices running.
What tips do you have to add the Organize it doesn’t mention? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Get Creative Part 1: The Tools – [Organize it]
Get Creative Part 2: Locations – [Organize it]
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Comments
Katie Konrath says on April 9th, 2007 at 9:31 am
When I read the tips of Organize it for ways to get creative, the one thing that really jumped out at me is that those tips focus on setting yourself up to receive ideas. Which is fantastic for people who are already great about thinking of ideas, but doesn’t always work so well for most everyone else.
If you’re one of those people who isn’t regularly struck with brilliant ideas, putting yourself in a new environment with the right thinking accessories can help, but is not enough. It’s like sitting under an apple tree expecting to be struck with an apple and have a Isaac Newton “aha!” moment.
People who need to be creative must actively try to be creative. That means looking at the problem from different angles and thinking of all the ideas you can.
Some suggestions:
* Think of what you are trying to accomplish abstractly. E.g. You’re not trying to create a faster horse carriage, you’re trying to find a faster way to get someone from A to B.
* Look around you for inspiration. How would an ant face that problem? How about a giant? Doesn’t matter if your answer is ridiculous… the goal is to get yourself into a new frame of mind.
* Set a timer for 4 minutes and put down all the ideas you can. Everything and anything that comes into your head. The key is to keep your pencil moving. When the time is up, put the paper aside, give yourself 2 minutes to think and do it all over again. You’ll be surprised by how many you write down.
* Take your craziest ideas and find the value in them. Think the best way for a car company to improve a car would be to make it so it can change color? Crazy, right? However, a car company could possibly offer a service that quickly and affordably repaints cars, or sells unpainted cars so the customer can pick the color. That might be an interesting way for car companies to make money, because American customers love to customize!
Those are just a couple tips, but there are many other ways to help your mind think of ideas. Don’t just sit around in some special location waiting for ideas!
James says on August 21st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I’ve done a third part to the series addressing some of the issues from the above comment. You can view it here
Cathi says on August 31st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Creativity is simply about setting your mind free comig up with cool ideas like my daughter Rosi