How to Create a Swipe File to Jump Start Your Creativity

Several years ago I read a great book by Michael J. Gelb called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci which introduces seven principles for thinking like history’s greatest genius. One of the main suggestions of the book is that the reader start keeping a notebook like Leonardo did: he carried a notebook with him at all times so that he could jot down ideas, impressions, observations, and anything else that came to mind. In a previous post, Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Copy his Notebook Habit I wrote about my “Leonardo da Vinci Notebook”. Yesterday it occurred to me that my notebook is a swipe file.

What is a Swipe File?

Swipe files are a collection of excellent material—or cool ideas–that provide a great jumping-off point for anybody who needs to come up with lots of ideas, whether you’re a graphic designer, copywriter, author, and so on. Some of the uses of a swipe file are the following:

• By analyzing why something attracted your attention–or why you consider it lackluster–you can develop a sense of what is a good or useful idea.

• When you find something effective, ask yourself what emotions or desires it appeals to. What color scheme did they use? What tactics did they use to keep the reader’s attention?

• Exciting new ideas rarely appear out of nowhere; a swipe file gives you a source of creativity triggers.

• You’re not plagiarizing the work of others; you’re simply using it for inspiration.

• Think of ways to recombine ideas.

• Keep track of your development and how your ideas are evolving and expanding.

• Use your swipe file to learn from the best. To quote Michael J. Gelb: “Baby ducks learn to survive by imitating their mothers. Learning through imitation is fundamental to many species, including humans. As we become adults we have a unique advantage: we can choose whom and what to imitate.”

What Should You Use to Collect the Information?

You can collect swipe files in a myriad of forms. Some people use a moleskin or a notebook. Others use a binder or keep the information in a box so that they can easily add magazine clippings, newspaper ads, e-mails, postcards, photographs, and so on. You can print out information from the web and add it to your swipe file, with the added advantage that you can highlight information that you find to be particularly useful and write notes on the margins. Another option is to create a digital swipe file, whether by using social bookmarking sites or note-taking software. Skellie from skelliewag.org keeps her swipe file with Tumblr.

What Should You Keep in Your Swipe File?

You can keep anything that inspires you in your swipe file, such as the following: Titles of Books That Catch Your Attention

• “A Child Called It”
• “I Try to Take One Day at a Time, but Sometimes Several Days Attack Me at Once”
• “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
• “Something Wicked This Way Comes”

Great Quotes (Possibly adding some thoughts as to how you might use the quote.)

• “Be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.” — Henry Van Dyke

• “I am no one special, just a common man with common thoughts. I’ve led a common life, there are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect, I’ve succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived…I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul and for me… that has always been enough.”– The Notebook

• “I believe that the difference between an ordinary person and an extraordinary one is how one sees oneself. If you believe in yourself anything is possible.” — Jody Williams

Online Videos You Enjoyed Watching

• A list of YouTube videos you find inspiring. You can get started by going through the Top 5 Most Inspirational Videos on YouTube post at www.zenhabits.net. The comments section contains a lot of good video suggestions as well.

• A list of great TED.com videos. You can get started by reading the post over at Stepcase Lifehack, The Ten Videos to Change How You View the World.

Passages from Books

• CHAPTER VIII - Of the good fortune which the valiant Don Quixote had in the terrible and undreamt–of adventure of the windmills, with other occurrences worthy to be fitly recorded

At this point they came in sight of thirty forty windmills that there are on plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, “Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth.” “What giants?” said Sancho Panza. “Those thou seest there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.” “Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.” “It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.”

Memorable Lines from Movies

• “The Incredibles”

Mr. Incredible: “No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know?”

Edna Mode: “I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.”

• “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”

Jack Sparrow: That’s the second time I’ve had to watch that man sail away with my ship.

Elizabeth: But you were marooned on this island before, weren’t you? So we can escape in the same way you did then.

Jack Sparrow: To what point and purpose, young missy? The Black Pearl is gone and unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice - unlikely - young Mr. Turner will be dead long before you can reach him.

Elizabeth: But you’re Captain Jack Sparrow. You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company. You sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot. Are you the pirate I’ve read about or not? How did you escape last time?

Jack Sparrow: Last time… I was here a grand total of three days, all right? Last time, the rum runners used this island as a cache, they came past and I was able to barter passage off. By the look of things, they’ve long been out of business.

Elizabeth: So that’s it, then? That’s the secret, grand adventure of the infamous Jack Sparrow. You spent three days lying on a beach drinking rum.

Jack Sparrow: Welcome to the Caribbean, love.

Headlines That Catch Your Attention

• You can start off here: How to Write Magnetic Headlines.

Notes on How Others Came Up with Inventions

• A.J. Khubani, founder and chief executive of Telebrands, one of the top direct-response TV marketing companies in the country, came up with the idea of the Stick-Up-Bulb, a battery-operated light bulb that can be stuck inside any dark, out-of-the-way place. He explains that he found himself on the dark side of his basement and he found himself thinking: “When we built this house, we really should have put a light bulb here. And that was it. Light bulb!” It made its debut in September 2006. More than 5 million have been sold - so far.

Humor

• “You learn a lot in your teenage years, for instance I learned that if you’re ever being chased by a police dog, try not to go through a little tunnel, then onto a mini seesaw and then jump through a ring of fire, they’ve trained for that y’see.” - Danny McCrossan - Northern Irish Comedian.

• “To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.” ~Don Schrader

Other

• Flickr photographs

• Diagrams

• Mindmaps

• Poems

• Song Lyrics

• Magazine clippings

• Newspaper clippings

• Doodles

• Quick thoughts you record before you get distracted

(”Notes”; courtesy of erikabuentello)

Recommended Books:

• How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day

• The How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci Workbook: Your Personal Companion to How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

Recommended Product:

Learn to meditate, increase your focus and concentration, boost your creativity, and augment your brain power with the Silva Life System.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe by RSS or e-mail and you’ll always know when I publish something new. (What’s RSS?).

Also, please share it on the social media site of your choice, thank you.