30 Creativity Cards: A Gift I Made For You

The 28th of November is “Buy Nothing Day“, a backlash against over-consumption and the havoc we’re wrecking on our planet by the over-utilization of our natural resources.

To put a more positive spin on the idea, several blogs are suggesting that the 28th be “Make Something Day” instead.  The suggestion is to spend the 28th of November–which is the day after Thanksgiving in the US–making gifts for others instead of hitting the mall.

I think it’s a great idea, especially after watching “The Story of Stuff”, a twenty minute video which explains that in the Amazon alone, we’re losing 2000 trees a minute; that’s seven football fields a minute. In addition, 99% of the things which we run through the chain of extraction, production, distribution, and consumption end up in the trash within six months after their sale.  To make matters worse, for every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curve, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream to make the junk in that one garbage can.

So, in honor of the idea of making gifts for others, I’ve made a gift for you: below you will find 30 creativity cards which you can print out and glue onto index cards or heavy stock paper; you can pull them out whenever you get stuck or just need some creative inspiration.  I hope you enjoy them

Simply begin. Creativity is there all the time, you need to begin, move forward and get started, and then inspiration will come to you. When you’re crabby, when all you can think about are other things that need to be done, when you feel that you’re just not “in the mood” to create, when your inner critic tries to dissuade you from even trying, do it anyway. When Michael Michalko–author of “Cracking Creativity”–has writer’s block, he simply sits down and writes, “O, lend me to some peaceful gloom,” over and over until his own thoughts and words come. Then he just keeps going.

Remember there is more than one right answer. Consider the high school science exam where one question was: “How can you determine the height of a building using a barometer?” Most students, after recalling the teacher’s lecture on this subject, gave the answer, “Measure the atmospheric pressure at the top of the building, measure it at the bottom of the building, note the difference, and then calculate the height.” Two students were marked wrong for their answers. One responded, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, throw it off the roof, time how long it takes until you hear a crash, and then use the acceleration-through-space formula to calculate the distance it traveled.” That answer was not what the teacher was expecting; but it works. Another student answered he would find the owner of the building and offer him the barometer in exchange for being told the height of the building. This answer would also have worked. (Source).

Laugh. Laughing has been shown to help people think more broadly, associate freely, and notice complex relationships. One study found that people who had just watched a video of television bloopers were better at solving a puzzle long used by psychologists to test creative thinking. Edward de Bono writes about humor in his book “I am Right, You are Wrong”. He explains that humor is based on a logic very different from traditional logic. The significance of humor is that it indicates pattern-forming, pattern asymmetry and pattern-switching. Therefore, humor has the same basis as creativity and lateral thinking.

Combine. Combine ideas in a unique way; look for relationships between disparate things, make useful associations among ideas; look afresh at what you normally take for granted. Here are two examples: Wheels + gym shoe = roller skates; TV + Music = MTV.  “Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none existed.” — Thomas Disch.

Change perspectives. Look at your topic from many different perspectives. How would a mystic approach this idea? How would a rocket scientist look at this? What would a child do? What would a very old person do?

Be curious about everything. You never know when random, seemingly unrelated ideas will come together to form a new idea. “The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things-ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later, or six months, or six years. But he has faith that it will happen.” — Carl Ally

Challenge your assumptions. 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).

Be childlike. “Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal whole in a book about the primeval forest. After some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups and they all thought it was a picture of a hat. But it was not a hat, it was a boa constrictor.  Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it’s tiresome for children to always have to explain things to them. So I stopped talking to them about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to their level: I would talk about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-ups would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.” –an adaptation of “The Little Prince”

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

Play Baroque Music. Baroque music-such as Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” and Pachbel’s “Canon”-has been shown to synchronize brain waves at about 60 cycles per second, a frequency associated with increased alpha waves. In turn, alpha is a frequency of mind associated with enhanced creativity.

Exaggerate. What if you were a thousand times smarter? What if you were two inches tall? Make the colors brighter. Now see it in black and white.

Take risks. Get over the fear of being wrong. “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.” — Edward de Bono

Shift gears. Take time off and put together a jigsaw puzzle. Follow Einstein’s advice: take a nap.  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. 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. Thomas Edison, a man with over 1,000 patents to his credit, would go down to the dock and fish.

Look to nature. Are there any analogies you can draw from nature? Velcro was inspired by nature. The Swiss Georges de Mestral, inventor of Velcro, noticed how the sticky seed heads of burdock plants attached themselves to his pants and to his dog after walks in the woods. This observation led him to invent the product now called Velcro in 1948.

“If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, music, you automatically explode every morning like old faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed to trap them before they escape.” – Ray Bradbury

Avoid crowds. Take Hugh MacLeod’s advice: don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. Mad Magazine’s Al Jaffee conceived of his comic strip “Tall Tales” while going through difficult financial times.  He managed to break into the business of syndicated comics by doing something different than what everybody else was doing: rather than drawing a traditional horizontal strip that would compete with the existing material, he opted for a seven-inch-tall vertical strip, which gave editors a lot more flexibility as to where in the paper the strip would run. (Source). What can you do that is different from what everyone else is doing?

Wake up your right brain. The right brain is your creativity center. Because the right brain hemisphere controls the left side of your body, you can activate this creativity center by breathing out of only your left nostril, jumping up and down on your left foot, and writing with your left hand. You can also do something artistic such as drawing, playing a musical instrument, creating mandalas, and so on. In addition, meditation stimulates the right brain hemisphere.

Use the Random Word Technique. Start by writing down a description of your problem, challenge or opportunity. Then, choose a random word–you can open a dictionary and choose the word your eyes focus on–and write down any associations that it makes you think of. After jotting down a number of words or short phrases, review your associations and your problem statement, and determine if you could adapt any of your associations to your current problem.

Create a mindmap. 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.

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, read different magazines, and so on.  Explore something new, try something you’ve always wondered about.

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. Play jacks, draw with chalk on the sidewalk, build a fortress–or anything else that catches your fancy–with Lego’s, go to the playground and climb on the swings . . .

Break it down. 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.

Ask lots of questions. Constantly ask: “What if . . .”; “Why not . . .”; “How else can this be done?”; “How can this be improved?”; “What other alternatives are there?”; “What am I missing?” . . .

“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. Chemistry is just becoming a science; psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein . . .” — Lincoln Steffens

Ignore those who try to put you down. Guy Kawakasi advises during his lecture called “The Art of Innovation” that you shouldn’t let the bozos get you down. He also explains that bozos come in many shapes and sizes, and the hardest ones to spot are the ones that have all of the indicators of success: they’re respected in their field and they’re rich, famous, and powerful.

Go Back to Basics. Pick up a pen or pencil and paper. There’s something about a good old-fashioned pen and a stack of papers, or a brand new notebook, that gets the creative juices flowing. Find an old typewriter and use that instead of your computer: “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 . . . Many people also find typewriters charming ambassadors of a bygone era.” (Source).

Focus. Great creative breakthroughs usually happen only after we have focused sufficient attention on our subject matter. That is, AHA! moments normally come only after much intense conscious effort.

Set a quantity quota. What if you had to come up with twenty different ways of solving the problem? Thomas Edison applied the concept of an “idea quota” in his life. This is a great motivational tool for attaining a great quantity of creative thinking output. It’s been said that by the time of his death in 1931, he held over one-thousand patents. His “Idea Quota” basically consisted of the following: he had to come up with a minor invention every 10 days and a major invention every 6 months. Consider setting an idea quote for yourself. Force yourself to come up with as many as 300 ideas.

Make it visual. Learn to draw, even if it’s very rudimentary sketches. Use Betty Edwards’ book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” to teach yourself to draw.

Practice being in a receptive state of mind. Instead of constantly having the television on, listening to your ipod, and surrounding yourself with noise and other distractions, practice being in a relaxed, contemplative state of mind. This state of mind is the one most conducive to allowing creative thoughts to slip into your mind.

Conclusion

The beautiful photograph you see at the top of this post was a gift given to me by Ryan over at “The Oktober5 Blog” as part of his “100 Squares of Christmas Project” (thank you Ryan). Also, if you’re interested in participating in “Make Something Day”, there are wonderful ideas here:

• The “Make Something Day” Blog
• One Pretty Thing
• Holidays by Hand

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

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Tagged as: Buy Nothing Day, Creativity, Make Something Day