|
bookmarks:
|
| main | ongoing | archive | private |
- Consistent Effort If you make a consistent effort to create new things, you’re bound to have results. If you just wait around for inspiration to strike, you could be waiting for a long time. Inspiration tends to strike those who are already in the middle of the creative process. A reward, if you will, for your diligent work.
- Record Everything Keep a notebook, sketchbook, or recording device handy at all times. Ideas are slippery as eels, and if you wait too long, the damn things will swim away. If you have a smashing idea just before you fall asleep, you probably won’t remember it in the morning, and if you’re driving or rolling on the subway, something else will distract your attention.
- Elaborate on Something If you’ve already made something cool, go back and see if you can’t expand on it. Especially if some time has passed and an idea has had time to incubate, you’ll have new things to add, angles to elaborate on.
- Switch Gears If you’re doing brain work, do body work, and vice versa. If you’re writing a report, do a puzzle, if you’re building a sculpture of a giant chrome sponge, sing a song.
- Think Laterally Look for associated ideas, especially while you’re already working on something. As I’m writing this, I’ve had ideas for four six more posts. While I won’t use them all, it’s nice to have them to draw from.
- Mind Maps Mind maps are effective because they make the most of lateral, horizontal thinking. They give you a chance to put a lot of information down about a topic without worrying about actually organizing the information. This is just my opinion, but mind maps may be a close representation of how thoughts are structured. Here’s the wiki entry.
- Don’t be Afraid of Bad Ideas When you have a lot of bad ideas, you’re bound to have good ones. Plus, with lots of bad ideas you’ll have less trouble telling the good from the bad.
- Get Emotional Horror movies and comedies come to mind, but you can also read really sad stories, instigate an argument with a stranger, walk in a grave yard, whatever. Just apologize if things get out of hand.
- Hang out With Friends Depending on your ‘vert persuasion*, you may need more or less of this, but fun with friends can be relaxing. Just shooting the shit and forgetting about things for a while can give your brain some breathing room (*introvert or extrovert).
- Sleep On It Whether you’re working on a problem or looking for new ideas, sleep can give your brain the chance to mull a problem over, give you a new plan of attack.
- Take a Hike Walking is good, but hiking is better. Mind-body connection, you’ve heard it before, but it really works. If you’re trying to generate new ideas or feeling stumped, getting the blood flowing seems to mix things up. When the body starts working, more neurons start firing. While walking is good, getting out in the woods is better. Being in nature reduces stress.
- Free Write Similar to morning journaling, only more focused on a single problem. Write about your topic, whatever you’re stuck on, for about fifteen minutes. Don’t censor, don’t edit, just write whatever comes to your head. Works best if the pen doesn’t leave the paper.
- Take a Media Fast Lots of people of written on this, but there’s a reason: it’s effective. Media, this blog included, can be a huge time sink; consumption can can stifle creativity. Taking a complete break can be challenging, but the rewards are well worth it.
- Learn a Useless Skill Useless skills are entertaining and make life more fun.
- Really Listen To Music Without other distractions, just put on a amazing record, put on good headphones, sit back, relax, and listen. Pick out a single instrument to follow. Feel the groove, the flow of the record. If the feeling gets you, get up and dance.
- Do stuff you find troubling Shoot a gun. Gamble. Get sick on liquor. Eat a bloody steak. Give alcohol to a bum. Go to a strip club. Watch television for a couple hours. Sniff glue and go to a creepy mega-church (okay, scratch the sniffing glue part). Going outside of your comfort zone will give you new ideas.
- Travel Travel will give your brain a chance to go wild. New places, sights, smells, gravitational pulls, all these will give you a ton of new ideas. Remember, travel doesn’t mean going to the other side of the world. Try going to a nearby town, a place you’ve never or rarely been. Or imagine how you’d visit your town if you were a tourist.
- Screw Off Give yourself time just to do whatever you like. Anything. Guilt free. Just get away and have fun.
- Try a Different Medium (or instrument) Writers drawing, painters writing, drummers singing (uh, on second thought…), all these things could be messy but useful. Creating in a different medium, especially with the understanding that it’s just for fun, makes you use different parts of your brain.
- Just Start Don’t worry about making something awesome. Just make something. Something is better than nothing. Nothing is perfect the first time or the tenth time.
- Optimize your Workspace I just did this a few days ago by clearing a bunch of crap off desk, duct taping some wires to the back of the desk, replacing the desk lamp with a little plant, and getting rid of the dead hookers. Those small change helped motivate me to clear some old stuff of the to-do list.
- Move Your Space My wife hates it, but every few months I’ll move the furniture around. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but at least it keeps things fresh. Plus, I usually find something interesting.
- Screw Perfection Perfection is the worst enemy of creativity. Creativity is play, and play can never be perfect. Striving for excellence is great, but perfection is an unattainable goal, sure to kill any creativity. Internal editors and censors aren’t you’re friends in the first rounds of creating. Keep them at bay as long as possible.
- Visualize Whether in your mind or on paper, seeing things in pictures rather than thinking of them in words can give you a different way to look at things.
- Abandon Stuff Sometimes activities just take up too much mental power. Focus your energies and drop low-value brain draining tasks.
- Get Injured When I broke my foot, I sat around the house for a month. While that wasn’t the brightest time of my life, I did get a new perspective on mobility and health, as well as a few story ideas. Of course, intentionally injuring yourself is pretty stupid, but if you do get injured, make the most of it. Make sure you have health insurance (Seriously, don’t injure yourself. I don’t want to get sued).
- Ignore People Some people…geez. If you listen to them long enough, you’ll believe everything awesome has already been done, all ideas are rip-offs, and all people are shitheads. Don’t let their negativity, laziness, and failures of imagination to drag you down.
- Meditation I’m still not 100% sold on meditation, but millions of Buddhists can’t be wrong. If nothing else, just stepping away from the mundane, closing your eyes, and doing some breathing is effective. For me, meditation is sitting on a mountaintop and listening to the wind.
- Step Away Adding psychological distance frees up a little of your brain, giving you a chance to examine a problem as an abstract problem rather than a concrete issue. Concrete can be tough to move. For example, why is it so easy to see the problems of others but so damn difficult to see your own? There’s no distance.
- Work in a Different Venue Changing scenery can yield new ideas and inspiration. Our surroundings influence us more than we care to admit. Change your surroundings and you’ll change your work. For me, this means leaving my apartment and taking my notebook to the neighborhood pub. Nobody speaks English there so I get left alone, and they feed me peanuts. Maybe a pub isn’t the best place for everybody, but I always come up with stuff when I’m there.
may 9 2013 ∞
may 9 2013 +
may 9 2013 +