45. Ask yourself what the market wants or needs.
46. Ask "What's the worst thing that could happen if I fail?"
47. Pilot your idea, even if it's not completely ready.
48. Work "in the cracks" -- small bursts of creative energy.
49. Incubate (sleep on it).
50. Test existing boundaries -- and then test them again.
51. Schedule time with the smartest people at work.
52. Visit your customers more frequently.
53. Benchmark your competitors -- then adapt their successes.
54. Enroll your boss or peers in your most fascinating project.
55. Imagine you already know the answer. What would it be?
56. Create ground rules with your team that foster new thinking.
57. Ask stupid questions. Then ask some more.
58. Challenge everything you do.
59. Give yourself a deadline -- and stick to it
60. Look for three alternatives to every solution you originate.
61. Write your ideas in a notebook and review them regularly.
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62. Make connections between seemingly disconnected things.
63. Use creative thinking techniques.
64. Play with the Free the Genie cards.
65 Use similes and metaphors when describing your ideas.
66. Have more fun. Be sillier than usual.
67. Ask "How can I accomplish my goal in half the time?"
68. Take a break when you are stuck on a problem.
69. Think of how your biggest hero might approach your challenge.
70. Declare Friday afternoons a "no-email zone."
71. Ask five people how they would improve your idea.
72. Create a wall of images that inspires you.
73. Do more of what already helps you be creative off the job.
74. Laugh more. worry less.
75. Remember your dreams -- then write them down.
76. Ask impossible questions.
77. Eliminate all unnecessary bureaucracy and admin tasks.
78. Create a compelling vision of what you want to accomplish.
79. Work on hottest project every day, even if only 5 minutes.
80. Do whatever is necessary to create a sense of urgency.
81. Go for a walk anytime you're stuck.
82. Meditate or do relaxation exercises.
83. Take more breaks.
84. Go out for lunch with your team more often.
85. Eat lunch with a different person each day.
86. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
87. Invite an outside facilitator to lead a brainstorming session.
88. Take more risks outside of the office (i.e. surf, ski, box etc.)
89. Ask for help when you need it.
90. Know that it is possible to make a difference.
91. Find a mentor.
92. Acknowledge all your successes at the end of each day.
93. Create an "idea piggy bank" and make deposits daily.
94. Have shorter meetings.
95. Try the techniques in Awake at the Wheel
96. Don't listen to or watch the news for 24 hours.
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97. Make drawings of your ideas.
98. Bring your project or challenge to mind before going to bed.
99. Divide your idea into component parts. Then rethink each part.
100. Post this list near your desk and read it daily.
Ebook: How to Be More Creative - A Handbook for Alchemists
by Marelisa Fábrega
Here's more praise for "How to Be More Creative - A Handbook for
Alchemists" :
The word 'alchemist' - what does that mean? "A person who turns
something common into something special." In this ebook, you'll find a
myriad of ways in which to creatively apply this in your life - and really
become an alchemist! Marelisa has created a fantastic ebook which is a
resource on many, many ways to get the creative thought process really
revved up in your life! And what truly makes this great is both the
number of different methods on being creative, and the easy to follow
understanding of each of these. If you're looking to really increase your
creativity factor, then this is just what you can use! Marelisa has created
an amazing resource on creativity techniques that everyone can apply
to all areas of their life right away!
(Lance from "The Jungle of Life", Wisconsin, USA)
Creativity Tip
Constantly ask:
"What if . . ."
"Why not . . ."
"How else can this be done?"
"How can this be improved?"
"What other alternatives are there?"
Important!
“I didn't fail 10,000 times. I successfully eliminated 10,000
combinations that wouldn't work.”
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Thomas Edison
Edison was awarded a total of 1,093 patents. Among his most famous
inventions were the phonograph, the mimeograph, fluoroscope,
alkaline storage battery, dictating machine and motion picture cameras
and projectors.
Where do ideas come from? A + B = C
To have a creative idea simply connect two unrelated things; that is,
A+B= C.
How to Unleash Your Creativity?
In a discussion with Scientific American Mind executive editor Mariette
DiChristina, three noted experts on creativity, each with a very different
perspective and background, reveal powerful ways to unleash your
creative self.
"The most potent muse of all is our own inner child." - Stephen
Nachmanovitch”
Cultivate Your Creativity: Connect With Your Inner Child
Charles Baudelaire described genius as "no more than childhood
recaptured at will." Creativity is also something that you can recapture
at will by getting in touch with your inner child. If it's been a long time
since you invited your inner child out to play, you can reconnect with
him or her by doing the following:
1. Color. Buy crayons and a coloring book-the big thick kind filled with
all kinds of images that you loved as a child--and sit down for an
afternoon of coloring. It's OK if you color outside the lines.
2. Play. Spend some time thinking about what you loved to play with as
a child. Did you play jacks, draw with chalk on the sidewalk, build a
fortress with Legos, or create "baked goods" with Play-Doh.
3. Go to the playground. Play hopscotch, jump rope, climb on the
swings, and climb on the jungle gyms.
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4. Draw your goal. Grab some crayons, markers or colored pencils.
Imagine a goal that you'd like to meet, and draw a picture of what it will
look like when you've reached this goal.
5. Go for a walk.Go on a nature walk and look at everything with
wonder like a child would. Be curious and aware. Gather leaves,
feathers, rocks, and flowers and take them home with you.
6. Make a cootie catcher. Did you forget how? Go here.
7. Read Dr. Seuss' books. Few things will help you reconnect with your
inner child as much as sitting down and rhyming along with the magical
Dr. Seuss.
("Little Artist", courtesy of bo_gazi).
Creativity Tip
Disrupt your habitual thought patterns. Take a different route to work,
try food you've never eaten before, listen to a music genre you normally
don't listen to, and so on.
Important!
Creativity Technique: Play
"When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes
on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity." -- Linda
Naiman
Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo
Look at Some of the Things They Do at Google
These are some of the things they do at Google--a company known for
innovation--to
stimulate
their
employee's
creativity:
Creative Workspaces
How to Make Your Desk a More Creative Space
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Do you consider yourself a creative person? Find out how to make your
workplace desk a creative workspace that will inspire and amplify your
creative talents. This video is funny, informational, and inspirational.
Make your common desk, uncommonly special and unique
Creative Cubicles
Every office has one. From the desk that looks like a tropical oasis to a
workspace that would make Martha Stewart blush -- we want to see the
creative cubicles that occupy
Your office.
Writer's Rooms
Take a look at the rooms in which some of the world's best literature
has been written.
Make Your Workspace More Creative
One of the best things you can do to increase your creativity is to create
an environment which gets your creative juices flowing. In order to
help inspire you in putting together a workspace you can look forward
to entering each day, below you'll find pictures of creative cubicles from
CNN's iReports, as well as photographs of the spaces in which some of
the world's most famous writers have created some of their best work.
Challenge Your Assumptions
Creative Technique
Farmers in Japan figured out how to grow square-shaped watermelons.
A fat, round watermelon takes up a lot of room. Instead of just
assuming that watermelons had to be round, they began inserting
melons in square glass cases while they were still growing on the vine.
The end result was a square watermelon which fits conveniently in the
refrigerators in which they're transported. What assumptions are you
making that are stopping you from finding a solution to your problem?
(Source.)
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Learn to notice patterns. "The genius," said American painter Ben
Shahn, "is merely the one able to detect the pattern amidst the
confusion of details just a little sooner than the average man."
Lincoln Steffens
"Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done
over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't
written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a
perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics,
mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the
sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics,
and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an
Einstein."
Tell the World: "I'm an Artist"
Creativity Tip
Strive for Excellence, Not Perfection
"Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in
ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good
enough . . . that we should try again." (Julia Cameron)
“You are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you
almost don't exist.”
Creativity and Flow
Flow can happen in any domain or activity. The main requirement is
that your skills so perfectly match the demands of the activity that all
self-consciousness disappears. If your skills are not up to the challenge,
you experience anxiety; if your skills are too great, you experience
boredom.
One of the greatest benefits of the flow state is that it's the most
creative state to be in. Here's a quote about the flow state:
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"Being in the flow" is definitely worth striving for. I know when I'm
there. I'm tapped into something that is far beyond my ability." - Aleta
Pippin (painter)
Jack Foster: The key message is that all of us are very creative. If we
simply allow ourselves to be more creative we will be more creative.
Most of the time we hold ourselves back, but if we can convince
ourselves that we are a fountain of good ideas we will become a
fountain of good ideas. The same is true in all facets of life, certainly in
all facets of our personality. We make ourselves. We invent ourselves.
Creativity Tip
Break it down. Break a problem down into its smallest
components and rebuild it from the ground up, questioning at
every step whether that's the best way to do it.
Use Visual Thinking
Learn to Draw
Create Mandalas
Mandalas-from the Sanskrit for "circle"-have been used for thousands
of years in many cultures around the globe as a tool for spiritual
growth, creativity, and physical and emotional healing.
Constraints and Limitations
Composer Stephen Sondheim once said:
"If you ask me to write a song about the ocean, I'm stumped. But if you
tell me to write a ballad about a woman in a red dress falling off her
stool at three in the morning, I'm inspired."
Stimulating Creativity with Constraints and Limits
While thinking "outside the box" is often used as a synonym for
creativity, thinking "inside the box" with limitations of time, money and
other resources often helps the mind to focus and respond with
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innovative solutions to problems. Composer Stephen Sondheim once
said:
"If you ask me to write a song about the ocean, I'm stumped. But if you
tell me to write a ballad about a woman in a red dress falling off her
stool at three in the morning, I'm inspired."
Two examples of how you can allow your creativity to soar by setting
limits are the "Three Units for a Good Tragedy" explained below and
"The Houdini Solution" explained in the next text module.:
The Three Unities for A Good Tragedy
In an interview published on "Heads up! on Organizational Innovation",
creativity guru Roger von Oech explains that constraints force the
innovator to think and look more deeply for opportunities. As an
example, he explains that he was watching a Roman Polanski's 1962
film titled "Knife in the Water". One of the DVD's special features had an
interview with Polanski and his screenwriter in which they both stated
that they forced themselves to stick with Aristotle's "three unities for a
good tragedy":
- All action takes place within 24 hours;
- All action occurs in the same place; and
- There is a limited number of characters
This made them think more deeply about plot and character rather
than taking cinematic shortcuts. That is, these three limits helped them
create a much better film than they would have put together had they
not set any limits.
The Houdini Solution
This lens by Ernie Schenck, author of "The Houdini Solution", explains
that creative breakthroughs occur because of limitations, not in spite of
them.
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To Be More Creative, Think Within the Box
Ernie Schenck is an advertising and creative director, as well as the
author of the book "The Houdini Solution". He argues that the best way
to come up with great ideas is not to think outside of the box, but
instead to think within the box. He explains this concept in his squidoo
lens, houdinisolution, and quotes psychologist and creativity expert
Rollo May as follows:
"Creativity requires limits, for the creative act arises out of the struggle
of human beings and against that which limits them."
Schenck argues that you don't need to wait for "the muse" to appear or
for your life circumstances to change; instead, work with the
circumstances in which you currently find yourself and use any existing
parameters or limitations as a vehicle to give your creativity direction.
He adds that by the time you finish reading "The Houdini Solution"
you'll understand the following:
"The biggest secret of truly productive creative people is that they
embrace obstacles, they don't run from them. In their mind, every
setback is an opportunity, every limitation is a chance. Where others
see a wall, they see a doorway."
One of the examples used by Schenck to illustrate his point is that of
Jack White, a guitarist and songwriter and the leader of the Grammy
Award-winning rock band, White Stripes. These are some of Jack
White's self-imposed restrictions:
* No computers.
* No digital recording technology.
* No bass guitars.
* No studio equipment invented after 1968.
* No clothes that aren't red, white or black.
This forced creative captivity nurtures innovation and results in music
that is more centered on talent than on technology.
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How many of us are waiting for something to happen or for some
obstacle to be removed before embarking on our creative endeavors?
Start using any limitations in your life as a way to mold your creativity,
instead of using them as excuses for not getting started.
Small Spark of Insight v. Sudden Blast of Inspiration
An Excerpt From "How to Be More Creative - A Handbook for
Alchemists"
Here's an excerpt from my ebook, "How to Be More Creative - A
Handbook for Alchemists", which did not actually make it into the
ebook, simply because I wanted to limit the size of the document (it
ended up being 123 pages long).
Excerpt:
R. Keith Sawyer, Washington University psychologist and author of
"Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation", argues that
the sudden creative flash is a byproduct of doing the work. In an
interview for Time magazine he explains that researchers use cleverly
designed experiments to study the "creative flash".
In one experiment, subjects were asked to look at words that came up
one at a time on a computer screen and to think of the one word that
was associated with all of them. After each word they had to give their
best guess. Here's an illustration:
red - nut - bowl - cup - basket - jelly - fresh - cocktail -
candy - pie - baking - salad - tree - fly
Although most of the test subjects indicated that they had no idea what
the answer was until about the twelfth word, their guesses got
progressively closer to the correct solution: fruit. That is, even when an
idea seems sudden, our minds have actually been working on it all
along.
He admonishes that we should get to work instead of waiting for that
one full-blown moment of inspiration. As we work-by gathering data,
letting the ideas ferment, conducting experiments, and gradually
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modifying our approach-we begin to get those tiny little sparks of
insight, one after the other. “Includes enough fun and informative
resources to take your creativity as far as you want to take it.”
Creative Thinking Technique: The Idea Box
You can overcome routine thinking and stimulate creative thought by
using specific techniques that will help both stimulate and constrain
your mind so that it can solve problems more effectively and generate
more ideas. The Idea Box is one of the most interesting creative
techniques that there is.
Idea Box - A Morphological Analysis
Idea Box is a Morphological analysis technique developed by Fritz
Zwicky in the 1940's and 50's as a method for systematically
structuring and investigating the total set of relationships contained in
multi-dimensional problems. It's an extension of attribute listing.
Variations of this technique are described by Arthur VanGundy in his
book "Techniques of Structured Problem Solving" and Michael
Michalko in "Thinkertoys".
You choose the number of parameters for your challenge and list
variations for each parameter. By combining different variations of the
parameters you create new ideas. The box is a matrix in which you
insert all of the different parameters so that you can see them clearly. If
you choose 10 elements with 10 possible variations for each, there will
be 10 billion possible combinations, so keep this in mind so that you're
idea box isn't too complex.
The general procedure to implement this technique is the following:
Step 1. List all the major elements involved in the issue or problem. For
example, the major elements of a product you're trying to improve
could be the material, the shape, and added features.
Step 2. Each variable is then listed under each element. So under
"material" the variables could be wood, steel, plastic, and so on.
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Step 3. Start combining the variables together to try to come up with
some novel ideas.
Step 4. Analyze the ideas and decide which one to pursue.
Creativity Tip
Hang a sign in a prominent place where you'll be sure to see it every
day that says "Create or die!".
The Big Dip
"Idea Sandbox" has a free problem solving tool called "The Big Dig". You
just click to scoop suggestions, such as: "Consider double-checking that
you're solving the right problem. Is there a more significant one you're
overlooking?"
Gator Break
Take a Gator Break. Here's one: "If at first an idea is not absurd, then
there's no hope for it." - Albert Einstein
Reconsider the old. Redesign something you see all the time (a stop
sign, a penny, etc.). This forces you to look at old things in a new way-
and challenges you to try different design approaches.
Creativity Tip
Follow Ernest Hemingway's advice: "Write the truest sentence you
know."
Writer's Block
More Ways to Get Unblocked
Mixing It Up Down Under: Creativity Unblocked
"When I can't begin or when I can't progress it is usually my inner
perfectionist raising her ugly-but-well-maintained head. I have become
too precious about the project, sometimes it is just an idea but already I
see it as sooooo wonderful that I could not possibly do it justice. I
become blocked."
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Good To Know Issue
What is your biggest stumbling block to creativity (or expressing
yourself artistically) and what works for you in overcoming these
setback(s)?
Important!
"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is
translated through you into action and because there is only one of you
in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never
exist through any other medium and be lost."
Mind Maps: Everything You Need to Know
A mind map is a whole-brain method for generating and organizing
ideas which is largely inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's approach to note-
taking.
Creativity Tip
Feel the fear, and then do it anyway.
“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life -- and I've never
let it keep me . . .”
Source: www.squido.com/lensmasters/Marelisa
Marelisa Fabrega blogs at http://abundance-blog.marelisa-
online.com
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3.16 TURNING PROBLEMS INTO
OPPORTUNITIES
One of the most insidious, unproductive, icky ways we use time is
complaining about our problems—especially when we should be
thinking about them as new o