Need some advice for thinking creatively? – Creative thinking involves imagining familiar things in a new light, digging below the surface to find previously undetected patterns, and finding connections among unrelated phenomena. Roger von Oech, Expect the unexpected
Here are some ideas to help you recapture your creativity, and generate new ideas. These ideas may also help you get your creative thinking moving again.
- Explore new ideas and learn to become flexible in your thinking.
- Practice visualization — learn how to create concept maps, illustrative schema, and sketch ideas out.
- Explore other fields looking for new theories and ideas that can be synthesized, adapted and then redirected to your creative project.
- Keep a record of your explorations — an “Idea Journal.”
- Learn to think in possibilities — diverge, be expansive in your thinking. Generate lots of ideas, then revisit them and refine or cull them.
- Practice trying to look at things holistically and try to get the big picture.
- If you are stuck and overwhelmed by a problem, it is often a matter of focus. Learn to look at parts of a problem or challenges separately, then come back out and view the big picture in a new way.
- Don’t get in a rut. Force yourself to try new things. Experiment with new strategies and play with ideas imaginatively.
- Think of yourself as an “idea artist” or an “idea vendor.”
- Combine ideas. Let ideas and thoughts ferment and percolate, “sleep on it,” and then revisit the issue or problem. A lot of highly creative people keep dream or idea journals next to their beds and jot down what they were thinking when they awoke.
- Take time to imagine new ideas and possibilities. Practice intentionally letting you mind wander, daydream, and envision.
- Look for ideas and inspiration in ordinary places. Scan books, magazines, articles, advertisements & photos for new ideas. Cut out things you find unusual or inspiring. Create an idea board and revisit it often.
- Ask family members, friends, co-workers and even strangers for a fresh perspectives.
- Brainstorm and free associate frequently.
- Free yourself from “functional fixity” – restrictively thinking of something only in one way. Functional fixity is only being able to see things from a limited perspective — for instance seeing a paperclip as only that and not as a lock pick, or as a barrette, or a canape holder, or as part of a necklace. Fixity greatly restricts creative thinking! Use McGyver type thinking as an inspiration to break out of functional fixity!
- Divest yourself of “cultural or gender mindsets” that may limit your thinking or solutions.
- Examine your thinking for barriers like “toxic nostalgia”– letting grandiose or overly romanticized visions of the past block new ideas.
- Examine negative emotions for seeds of ideas and returning creative equilibrium, and learn how to mobilize this energy into new and productive ways.
- Become familiar with barriers to creativity and learn how to foil them.
- Creativity is about being able to weave in and out of BOTH divergent and convergent thinking — PRACTICE BOTH.
On creating personalized solutions:
Note from Leslie: In using the ideas listed above, it might be a good idea to go through the list and prioritize which ones appeal to you most. Also note which ones you have used with any regularity and which ones have worked best for you. You may wish to use some sort of coding for this sifting and sorting process. At the same time notice strategies you have not used before. In the mode of experimentation untried ideas may be a good place to start the next time you are confronted with a creative challenge. In the past what worked best may have been situational and may have been dependent on the circumstances and the hows and whys of the problem or challenge.
Now think about your history of tackling creative challenges or solving problems and try to visualize new solutions. What would have happened if I did this or that? . . . Would some of the suggestions have worked better than others? Why or why not?
Suggestion #4 above talks about keeping “an idea journal.” May I suggest that this is a good strategy. A useful addition might be to also keep a “solution journal” which will give you future ideas about what strategies work and which don’t. This way you can keep track of patterns and connections that might emerge and come up with ideas for solving future problems and creative challenges. Good luck!
The listing above was adapted, modified, and expanded from the original Internet source: The AIM Lab http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu/AIM/Discovery/Mind/cthinking.html – URL no longer active
*Continue your search – 30 things you can do to promote creativity – A wonderful article by Miriam Clifford on how to promote creativity from informED
7 Types of thinking – A concise overview of different types of thinking from Anthony Metivier’s pages on Magnetic Memory Method .
*For those of you interested in entrepreneurship this article by Adriana Bujor & Silvia Avasilcai may offer some insights into patterns of behavior – The creative entrepreneur: A framework of analysis
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