30 Ways to Increase Your Creativity

(”Unattended Children”; courtesy of riddle)

“I would especially like to recourt the Muse of poetry, who ran off with the mailman four years ago, and drops me only a scribbled postcard from time to time.” - John Updike

1. Stop second-guessing yourself and try not to focus on how others will perceive your work.

2. Study and experiment with several forms of media: music, photography, writing or drawing. You can often learn concepts from all of these media which you can apply to other disciplines.

3. Read one page of the dictionary every day and write down any words that catch your attention in a notebook. When you need inspiration, look through the words you have written down.

4.  Show up: schedule a regular time to practice your craft–whether it’s writing or anything else–and show up, even if you’re not feeling creative.

5.  Beware of the ten creativity “locks” identified by Roger von Oeck:

• There is One Right Answer
• That’s Not Logical
• Follow the Rules
• Be Practical
• Play Is Frivolous
• That’s Not My Area
• Avoid Ambiguity
• Don’t Be Foolish
• To Err Is Wrong
• I’m Not Creative

6.  Immerse yourself in the task at hand: do your research, read everything you can about your subject, attend seminars, ask experts for their input, and so on.

7.  Create a “swipe file”. This is basically a collection of items of interest which you found noteworthy and which you can refer to in order to help jump-start your creativity.

8.  Be curious about everything.  You never know when random, seemingly unrelated ideas will come together to form a new idea.

9. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Edward de Bono advises that “It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.”

10.  Follow Pablo Picasso’s lead: learn the rules, and then break them.

11. Create Mindmaps. Write a topic heading in the center of a white piece of paper and then start writing related ideas on branches linked to the main topic; then add more ideas as sub-branches. Create as many levels of ideas as you want. Use different colors and add illustrations.

12. Ask yourself lots of questions.

13. Exercise during your lunch break.

14.  Re-connect with your inner child:

• 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.

• When you were a child did you play jacks, draw with chalk on the sidewalk, build fortresses with Legos, or create “baked goods” with Play-Doh? Give yourself permission to spend some time playing with the things you loved as a child.

• Go to the playground. Play hopscotch, jump rope, climb on the swings, and climb on the jungle gyms.

• Make a cootie catcher. Did you forget how? Go here.

15. Constantly ask: “What if . . .”; “Why not . . .”; “How else can this be done?”; “How can this be improved?”; “What other alternatives are there?”

16.  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.

17. Take a break.  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.

18.  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.”

19. Confront your assumptions.  Break a problem down into it’s smallest components and rebuild it from the ground up, questioning at every step whether that’s the best way to do it.

20.  Awaken your sense of wonder.  The authors of The Artist’s Way at Work suggest that once a week, for at least an hour, you take yourself on some small festive adventure.  Explore something new, try something you’ve always wondered about.

21.  Act on your creative impulses.

22.  Define yourself as an artist of life.

23.  Come up with your own version of reality.

24.  Think of something routine you do on a daily basis and find a way to give it a little more pizazz.

25.  Listen to your inner critic for tips on how to improve what you’re working on and to spot possible problems that need to be corrected.  Then promptly thank your inner critic for sharing and proceed to ignore anything else he/she has to say.

26.  Build your self-confidence.  Insecurity in your abilities can suppress your creativity.

27.  Use Edward de Bono’s “Six-Hat” technique.

• Red Hat: Look at the situation emotionally. What do your feelings tell you?
• White Hat: Look at the situation objectively. What are the facts?
• Yellow Hat: Use a positive perspective. Which elements of the solution will work?
• Black Hat: Use a negative perspective. Which elements of the solution won’t work?
• Green Hat: Think creatively. What are some alternative ideas?
• Blue Hat: Think broadly. What is the best overall solution?

28. Dancing is a very creative form of expression; intelligence does not reside only in the brain, your body knows things. Let your body contribute to your creative process by blaring the music and dancing around the room.

29. Make a habit of using your imagination.

30. Surround yourself with inspirational props, whether it’s books on creativity, a Ball of Whacks, images you find inspiring, creativity quotes, and so on.

Related Posts:

• 18 Ways to be Uber Creative
• Three Incredibly Effective Creativity Techniques
• Four Outstanding Thoughts on Innovation
• Thoughts to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

Recommended Books:

• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius
• A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative
• What a Great Idea! 2.0: Unlocking Your Creativity in Business and in Life

Recommended Product:

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe by RSS or e-mail and you’ll always know when I publish something new. If you’d like information on how RSS works, go here. You can also follow me on Twitter.