5 Creativity Strategies Nobody Told You About
Are your mental batteries on “low power mode?” Is your imagination akin to the current water level in Lake Mead? Are you up against a challenge with no discernable answer? If so, then it’s time to refresh your innovative spirit. Here are five strategies that will dramatically increase your “Creativity Quotient.”
1. Journey through new fields.
We frequently get comfortable… way too comfortable… in our chosen occupations. Architects see the world through the lens of a drafting table. Plumbers see the world as a leaky pipe. Teachers see the world as a classroom. Lawyers see the world as a courtroom.
Move away from your “comfort zone” and look at the world with a new (and refreshing) lens. If you’re an artist, watch a carpenter at work. If you’re a dentist, read a book about archeology. If you’re a computer programmer, visit a children’s museum. If you’re a seamstress, talk with a physical therapist. If you’re a writer, have a cup of coffee with a blues guitarist.
Like most people, you’ll see the world a little differently, and you’ll also be able to generate new ideas a little more easily. New lenses give you new vision. Change your outlook, and you’ll change your perspective.
2. Try picture-storming.
Here’s an activity I use—one that dramatically refocuses my thinking. I get a pack of 5 x 8 index cards, some cellophane tape, and a tall stack of various old magazines. I take a pair of scissors and cut out as many pictures (from the magazines) as I can. I don’t look for any particular type of picture or photograph—anything that strikes my fancy.
I usually set a predetermined goal: for example, 100 pictures. Afterward, I tape each picture to a card and turn all the cards over. Then, I arbitrarily select two cards (I can’t see the pictures on the other side) and paper clip them together. Eventually, I wind up with 50 random pairs.
I’ll select one of the pairs, turn the cards over, and generate as many similarities between the two pictures as I can. For example, I recently turned over a picture of a Mountain Gorilla and a 1950s dial telephone. Here are some of the similarities I produced: Both are endangered species, both make intrusive noises, both have digits, both can convey “bad news,” both have a protruding “belly,” and they both have carbon components.
By focusing on similarities (rather than differences), I am exercising my mind to look at items in a more creative way. This activity, done every week or so, helps me generate solutions to problems completely unrelated to gorillas or telephones. Try it, and you, too, will begin generating multiple responses to many of your challenges at work or at home.
3. Read biographies.
One of the best ways to become more creative is to read biographies. How did each individual solve problems in their field? How did they generate new ideas or innovative thoughts? How did those individuals meet the challenges of their day?
For me, the biographies of Leonardo daVinci, Galileo, Marie Curie, Picasso, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mel Brooks, and Steve Jobs have given me more creative insights and more creative possibilities than I can “shake a stick at.” Not only do the people profiled offer personal models of creative thinking; so, too, do they provide insights into the workings of the creative mind.
4. Think inside-out.
A few years ago, I began work on a children’s book about the majestic redwood trees of northern California, Tall Tall Tree. I wanted to focus on the various critters that lived in the canopy of these botanical skyscrapers. But I was stuck—I couldn’t seem to generate any dynamic ideas.
So, I did something different. I imagined that, instead of observing these iconic trees as an outsider, I would mentally crawl inside a towering redwood tree and look at the surrounding environment as if I was that tree. What creatures would be slumbering in my branches, how would the wind feel against my bark, and what kinds of insects would be creeping up my trunk?
In short order, the ideas began to flow like warm syrup on a stack of Sunday morning pancakes. I couldn’t write fast enough! Long story short: The book was published and eventually went on to garner several national writing awards, along with an avalanche of 5-star reviews. So, if your creativity wheels are slowing down, crawl inside your subject matter and look at it from the inside-out, rather than the outside-in. In short, imagine you are the subject of a current project.
5. Looking for little things.
We often have the mistaken idea that a creative idea is a big idea. The invention of manned flight, the creation of the World Wide Web, and the development of a vaccine for COVID-19. True, those are big creative concepts, but true creativity is founded on a principle of little discoveries… the small treasures we find when we envision creativity as “looking for the small, not just the big.” Discovering a unique synonym for “said” in the novel we’re writing. Eating at a Nepalese or Ethiopian restaurant for the first time. Discovering a new route home from work. Learning that a paper clip can be used to repair a broken toy.
Looking for little acts of creativity is just as significant (if not more so) as the big creative projects. Lots of little creative acts get us in the habit of making creativity a normal and natural part of our daily lives, rather than just an event that happens on rare occasions (“We need a new advertising campaign… and we need it now!”). Best of all, a tiny creative act every day (emphasis added) puts us in the growth mindset and begins to shatter all those unseen forces that have influenced our thinking for so long. We move away from the fixed mindset and into new realms of creative expression.