How to Be More Creative

To be more creative, start by following these four steps, roughly modeled after the five step technique set forth in the creativity classic, "A Technique for Producing Ideas" by James Webb Young:

1. Gather Information on Your Subject Matter

2. Digest the Information and Apply Creativity Techniques

3. Take Time for Incubation

4. Refine the Idea and Make it Real

These four steps are described in more detail below.

photo credit: jenn_jenn

The first step in unleashing your creativity involves gathering information about the topic at hand.

Read everything you can on your subject matter:

- Go to the library and check out books;

- Go to your neighborhood bookstore and browse through interesting reading material;

- Read magazine articles;

- Subscribe to a newsletter;

- Surf the internet for information;

- Subscribe to blogs dedicated to your topic.

You can also talk to people who have knowledge on the topic and ask them lots of questions, go to a lecture, enroll in a seminar, and even take an online class. The more you know about a topic, the more likely you are to come up with creative ideas for that subject matter.

("Working it all out . . . ", courtesy of Lost in Scotland).

The second step involves digesting and working with the raw material that you gathered in the previous step.

There are many books on creativity which offer the reader different creativity techniques to help in the generation of ideas, and at this point you can begin applying these techniques to your problem. Basically, there are creativity techniques that are expansive and "open" our mind, and there are creativity techniques that force your mind to focus.

Creativity Techniques that Open Your Mind

Some creativity techniques are intended to "open your mind" and encourage "free thinking", such as idea generation and brainstorming sessions, guided imagery, and other expansive techniques. For example, you can begin by releasing all of the preconceived ideas and assumptions you have about the topic and disregard fixed lines of thinking and rigid behavior patterns.

Creativity Techniques that Force Your Mind to Focus

Other techniques create constraints and force your mind to focus, such as setting time deadlines and other methods that force you to converge on a particular course of action. For example, in problem-solving contexts, the random word creativity technique has been shown to produce great results for those who apply it. Basically, a person confronted with a problem is presented with a randomly generated word and is told to make associations between the word and the problem as a creativity goad. By combining expansive and constraining creativity techniques you can come up with several different alternatives to choose from for solving the problem at hand.

("Ball of Whacks", courtesy of kevmaguire).

The third stage is letting go. You just drop the subject entirely, go do something else, and let the unconscious mind deal with the problem.

Incubation is needed to handle complexity - during this relaxing period, people unconsciously and consciously combine ideas with a freedom that denies linear and rational thought (Boden 1990).

After a period of intense concentration, Albert Einstein would take a nap or find another way to detach from whatever he was working on. He found that during these mental breaks his unconscious mind would go on thinking about the challenge and surprise him with an insight when he least expected it.

Isaac Asimov was quoted as saying that when he got stuck writing a book he would simply put the project aside and start writing a completely different book. When he returned to the original project he would find that his unconscious mind had figured things out and the ideas would just flow.

Seymour Cray, the legendary designer of high-speed computers, used to divide his time between building the next generation super computer and digging an underground tunnel below his Chippewa Falls house. He would immerse himself in his work, and then he would walk away from it and let the ideas percolate.

Thomas Edison, a man with over 1,000 patents to his credit, would go down to the dock and fish.

Therefore, after a period of thinking hard about a problem, the next step is to either work on something entirely different, or to relax: practice deliberate frivolity, go to a museum, go to the movies, or go for a twenty minute walk. Many people have reported "Eureka" moments while taking time for incubation.

("Artist Under Bridge", courtesy of Randy Son Of Robert).

The final stage is where you use trial and experimentation to test, edit, refine and polish the idea. In addition, at this step you need to make your idea real.

In her inspiring book, A Creative Companion: How to Free Your Creative Spirit, Sark tells the story of an Australian artist named Ken Done who created a painting he thought would look great on bed sheets. He took the idea to a sheet company but they turned him down because they just couldn't visualize bed sheets with his painting on them. Ken then went home, took a white bed sheet, painted his painting on it, and took it back to the sheet company. The bed sheet he painted looked so fabulous that the sheet company immediately placed a large order.

It's not enough to come up with great ideas, you have to act to turn those ideas into reality.

In this lens you will find more information on how to apply these steps to become more creative.

("The Artist's Table", courtesy of dayrain (gone to dive =)).

Dr. Edward de Bono is a leading authority in the field of creative thinking and is the originator of the term "lateral thinking". He explains that creativity is a skill that everyone can learn. He adds that even if some people may be better at being creative than others, like some people are better at playing tennis than others, when specific techniques are applied it becomes possible for anyone to generate new ideas in any field.

While Dr. de Bono emphasizes creativity techniques, Rice Freeman-Zachery, author of "Living the Creative Life: Ideas and Inspiration from Working Artists", has this to say about how to be more creative: "Instead of looking at the world as it is, look at everything as being full of possibilities. Instead of seeing what is, look for what could be. If you're an artist, you look at everything as a possibility and inspiration because you know that ideas can come from anywhere."

Psychotherapist and creativity coach Dr. Eric Maisel, Ph.D. has been working with creative and performing artists for over twenty years and has written many books teaching others to be more creative, including "Coaching the Artist Within", "Fearless Creating", "A Writer's Paris", "The Van Gogh Blues", and others. He explains that everyone wishes to create, but some people nurture and honor this desire, while for others the urge to create is dimmed. Dr. Maisel encourages poets, filmmakers, human resource specialists, biochemists, and everyone else to make creativity their religion.

There are also those, such as Dr. Caroline Myss-a pioneer in the field of energy medicine and human consciousness-who argue that creativity is not just an artistic or intellectual inclination; instead, working with your creative energy is as essential to your health and overall well-being as breathing and eating. She has this to say about the creative energy:

"Creative energy is a basic survival instinct; it motivates us to become part of society, to become productive, bring things to life, and to distinguish ourselves from others by what we make, the crafts we pursue, the skills we develop in business or in cultivating friendships, the entrepreneurial ideas we conceive, the problems we resolve, and the children or communities we birth and nurture."

(This was taken from the introduction of my ebook, "How to Be More Creative - A Handbook for Alchemists").

photo credit: ClickFlashPhotos

"How to Be More Creative - A Handbook for Alchemists" explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field, from medicine to business, and from engineering to developing a creative solution to a negotiation impasse. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

The ebook has 130 pages and 20 chapters and is chock full of value.



The purpose of this ebook is not just to give you information, but to transform you into a more creative and innovative person.

Print it out and place it in a ring-binder; you'll be creating a work file and adding lots of things to your binder, including creativity techniques, journal pages, quotes, photographs, ideas, and so on. At the end of almost every chapter in this ebook you'll find instructions on what to do with your work file.

Here's a .PDF file that contains the ebook's table of contents and the introduction:

"Table of Contents and Introduction"

"How to be More Creative - A Handbook for Alchemists" is not just a book that will help you enhance your artistic talents; it's also about bringing more creativity into your everyday life, for problem solving and for bringing more joy and satisfaction into your life. It's certainly a book after my own heart!

Marelisa provides an excellent roadmap for moving beyond lineal thinking. Several techniques are discussed that will get your creative juices running like a tap. In her book, she also draws on several examples of famous personalities, like Edward De Bono and Randy Ingermanson, who offer valuable lessons on how to be more creative. Her book is well researched, with extensive links and rich resources.

For anyone who wants more creativity in their life, this is the book for you!

--- Evelyn Lim, life coach and writer to Attraction Mind Map, Singapore.

"The simplicity of the typewriter is alluring to writers who may be overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) by increasingly elaborate technology. A typewriter is also appealing in its transparency - whack a key, and watch the typebar smack a letter onto a piece of paper. Try figuring that out with a laser printer. Many people also find typewriters charming ambassadors of a bygone era."

photo credit: plindberg

1. White Hat - State the facts and figures

2. Red Hat - State the emotions.

3. Black Hat -State the negatives. Use judgment and caution.

4. Yellow Hat - State the positives.

5. Green Hat - Ideas that come by seeing things in a new light. Suggest alternatives, proposals, provocations.

6. Blue Hat - Sum up what has been learned. It controls the debate. To see it in action.

(Hats is courtesy of bijoy mohan)

SARK is a fabulous author who writes wonderfully creative books that will inspire you to be an artist of life. Her creativity advice includes things such as: eat mangoes in the bathtub; to get past your inner critic you have to slide on your stomach under the gate with your identification papers in your mouth; make little signs that say "yes" and post them all over your house; and basically do whatever it takes.

SARK also suggests that just for a day you hide all the clocks in your house, that you invite someone dangerous to come over for tea, that you watch snails, and that you plant pots and pots of brightly colored flowers.

She calls her home "the magic cottage"; it used to be a tool shed and is 180 square feet in size. The magic cottage is surrounded by a garden three times its size. Here are some of the books SARK has written while having breakfast in bed, soaking in the tub, or swaying from a hammock in her garden as her cat Jupiter looks on:

(The "Dreamy Pink Balloons" photograph is courtesy of Pink Sherbet Photography).

Twyla Tharp, one of America's greatest choreographers, began her career in 1965, and in the ensuing years has created more than 130 dances for her own company as well as for the Joffrey Ballet, the New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, London's Royal Ballet, and American Ballet Theater. She writes about the creative process in her book, "The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life".

"Creativity is not a gift from the gods given to select individuals", says Twyla Tharp. She maintains that it's the product of preparation and effort, and it is within reach of everyone who wants to achieve it. All it takes is the willingness to make creativity a habit, an integral part of your life: "In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative."

("Ballerina Resting", courtesy of Ruth Christie).

Here's a list of 100 Simple Ways to Be More Creative on the Job. The first ten are:

• Find the most creative people at work and ask for their ideas.


• Brainstorm daily with a co-worker.


• Tape record your ideas on your commute to and from work.


• Present your biggest challenge to a child.


• Take your team off-site for a day.


• Listen more carefully to your inner muse.


• Play music in your office.


• Go for a daily brainstorming walk.


• Ask someone to collaborate with you on your favorite project.


• Exercise during your lunch break.

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

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.

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).

These are some of the things they do at Google--a company known for innovation--to stimulate their employee's creativity:

• Employees Shooting Pool in the Google Lounge


• The Google Idea Board


• The Google Treadmill Pool


• Google Employees Taking an Afternoon Volleyball Break


• The Google Slide

("Google Logo", courtesy of keso).

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.)

photo credit: solution_63

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 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.

photo credit: freeparking

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.

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.

photo credit: Ratherbewalking

In his book "The Houdini Solution: Why Thinking Inside the Box is the Key to Creativity", Ernie Schenck explains that in 1950 Ray Bradbury--author of "Fahrenheit 451", among many other successful books--was working on his next book: "The Illustrated Man".  Like most of Bradbury's books, it was a collection of short stories.  However, Bradbury's editor felt that the book would do better as a novel.  How was Bradbury going to turn a collection of completely different short stories--in which the characters were all different and there was no cohesive plot line--into a novel?

Bradbury had written a short story called "The Illustrated Man".  What Bradbury did was that he wrote a prologue in which a young wanderer meets an out-of-work carnival performer whose body is covered with tattoos.  This is "The Illustrated Man".  The young wanderer discovers that each tattoo is a vision of some future event as told by each of the short stories. Suddenly, the stories are related.  Now there was a common protagonist throughout all the stories and a common narrative thread.  Very resourceful!

To read more on how to increase your resourcefulness, read my blog post The Key to Success: Resourcefulness (Creativity + Determination).

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.

Sawyer refers to the first airplane ever flown to illustrate his point that creative breakthroughs are the result of progressive thought, even if the idea that finally solves the problem seems to be the product of a sudden spark. He explains that on the 8th of December of 1903, Samuel Pierpont Langley-who was one of the leading scientists of the time-launched his flying machine with much fanfare, only to watch it promptly plummet into the Potomac River.

Nine days later, Orville and Wilbur Wright-both bicycle mechanics-got the first plane off the ground. Why did they succeed when a famous scientist had failed just days before? Because Langley hired other people to execute his concept, while the Wright brothers did it themselves. Sawyer adds the following:

"Studying the Wright's diaries, you see that insight and execution are inextricably woven together. Over the years, as they solved problems like wing shape and wing warping, each adjustment involved a small spark of insight that led to others."

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 modifying our approach-we begin to get those tiny little sparks of insight, one after the other.

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.

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.

For more information on this technique, refer to my blog post "Three Incredibly Effective Creativity Techniques". In addition, part of the book "Thinkertoys"--including an explanation of this idea with a great example--is available for free here.

photo credit: pedrosimoes7

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