My creativity thinking is a melange of many different influences. The kernel of my approach comes from Charles Thompson's great book, What a Great Idea!: The Key Steps Creative People Take.

1. READY
Get ready. Get all of the information you need in your brain and on paper. Define the thing you're trying to be creative about. Give it a 'problem statement'. Be as specific as possible, so that you can get as much information as you need.

In this mode, you're thinking critically and analytically.

2. FIRE
In fire mode, you switch off your critical and analytical thinking and go into freeflow mode. It's like you're a gun shooting haphazardly into the night, not caring where the bullets land. All you care about is the numer of bullets.

When I'm brainstorming, I like to get at least one hundred raw ideas down while I'm in 'fire' mode. And I don't care about the quality of those ideas. I just want loads of them as raw material for the next phase.

It's important in 'fire' mode to have fun. Loads of it. Smile a lot. Drink loads of water. Move around the room. I put brown paper on my walls, and scribble on the paper with fat marker pens.

3. AIM
In 'aim' mode, you go back to your critical, analytical thinking, while retaining a little of the freeflow of 'fire' mode.

Your goal here is to look at all the raw material you've produced in 'fire', and narrow things down.

You change the ideas, moulding them to your purposes.

And your purpose is for your ideas to fit the 'problem statement' you created in the beginning, when you were getting 'ready'.

I use a tool called SCAMPER, an acronym that nudges things into new patterns.

4. ACTION
A friend's father once told me, 'There are many ideas in the world, but only a few opportunities.' His thesis was that if you don't act on ideas, they remain mere ideas.

For an idea to become an opportunity, you have to do two things. You have to recognise an idea as an opportunity. And then you have to act on it.

Taking action takes work. I like to create an action statement containing 3 or 4 goals (more becomes difficult to work with). And these goals all follow the 'SMART' acronym. They're Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-based.

This tool comes from THINKERTOYS by Michael Michalko. (If you don't own this book, buy it immediately. It's the ONE essential creativity book for your shelf.)

When you've collected a bunch of ideas, or you're busy originating, this tool will help you create connections where you didn't have any before.

Apply liberally.

It's an acronym. The letters stand for:

S: Substitute, Simplify
C: Combine
A: Adapt
M: Modify, Magnify, Minify
P: Put to other uses
E: Eliminate
R: Reverse, Rearrange

Whatever the idea is you're working with, choose one of the letters and mangle the idea.

For instance, if your goal is to find a way to convert a building into a marketing opportunity, one of the ideas you might have come up with is, 'make it into a billboard'.

If we 'eliminate', we can remove the words from the 'billboard' idea, leaving behind a piece of art. A huge artwork.

If we 'put to other uses', we might get a building with context-sensitive information on it. A signboard of sorts.

And so on. You're limited by your own willingness to scrunch things around.

For a goal to be meaningful, it helps if it's 'SMART'.

S: Specific.
M: Measureable.
A: Accountable.
R: Realistic/Recorded.
T: Time-based.

If I state: 'I want to go to the moon in a few days time', this would NOT be a 'SMART' goal. Sure, it's more-or-less 'specific' (but only just), and it's pretty 'measureable', but it doesn't meet the other three criteria. 'A few days' is not a time-based statement. It's hazy.

If I state, 'I want to walk on the moon's surface by the time I turn fifty on February 17 2018,' I'd be stating a 'SMART' goal.

It's VERY 'specific'. I'm stating the actual thing I'll do when I get to the moon.

It's something I can 'measure'... if I WALK on the surface of the moon, I'll know I've achieved my goal. If I do it by the time I turn fifty, stated as a real date, I'll know whether I've achieved it.

Am I 'accountable' for every step in the process? As Danny Thompson, 'The Left Handed Writer' explained to me:

"There should not be a major part of the goal that I can not directly influence. The outcome I desire can't hinge on someone else making something happen for me. That's not to say others can't help. Put if part of your goal relies on someone else to take action, make sure you have a back-up plan. By keeping myself accountable for each step in realizing the goal, I don't let myself accept failure just because someone else drops the ball."

'Realistic'? A little bit science-fiction-esque. But essentially realistic. Given the fact that South African businessperson, Mark Shuttleworth, has already walked in space, I'd say that twenty years is a fair time period to expect commercial moon travel to be possible. In that time, can I take steps to GET myself to the moon? Possibly.

And I've already illustrated the time-basedmess of it. I'm not vague about the time. I'm spelling out what 'by the time I turn fifty' means.

And of course, 'Recorded' is easy... write it down to make it happen. Have something to tick once you've done it.

Good luck with your own SMART goals.