Let's talk about developing creativity. The more unconventional life is, the more interesting it is to live. The ability to think outside the box makes us witty, resourceful, successful, entrepreneurial, lucky and rich. The ability to be creative can always be useful. But how?
Image-creative thinking, creative thinking and creativity are undoubtedly useful skills of a modern person. The more unconventional life is, the more interesting it is to live. In life, we are often required to be creative. The ability to think outside the box makes us witty, resourceful, successful, entrepreneurial, lucky and rich.
Creative thinking or creativity is a way of thinking, a certain process that leads to the creation of new things.
Creative thinking is distinguished from the processes of applying ready-made knowledge and skills, it is characterized by the creation of a new product and concerns motivation, goals, assessments and meanings.
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Recently at the first meeting of our book club we were talking about Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques by Michael Michalko. Besides this book I have heard about 6 others, which can also help thinking creative:
- Cracking Creativity by Michael Michalko
- Lateral Logic: Puzzle Your Way to Smart Thinking by Gareth Moore
- Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
- Accidental Genius by Mark Levy
- Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray
- The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
I haven't read them yet, so I can't be responsible for their quality, but their popularity (and they are really well-known) shows how relevant the topic is.
So, many books have been written on this topic, some of them I still want to read. At this point, I can introduce you to several methods that I have drawn from various scientific or near-scientific articles over the years. Is it helpful? Decide it yourself. My true opinion is at the end of the article.
Before reading tips: once I found out (actually I don't remember how) that some scientists (but who they are and whether we should believe them?) divide creative thinking into two types: divergent and convergent. Divergent thinking is the ability to find multiple solutions to the same problem. Convergent thinking choose the most effective of these solutions.
So, let's increase your creative potential:
1. Switching between tasks
Mind wandering is considered an important process in creative thinking. This process allows you to find non-trivial connections between ideas. Take your mind off the problem, do something else, often the solution comes at the most unexpected (and inappropriate) moment, for example, when you go to bed.
Cognitive fixing is considered an opposite process when you are literally fixated on the chosen solution to the problem, and you don't see alternative approaches.
2. Come up with ideas alone, discuss collectively
At the first meeting of the book club, we discussed the importance of teamwork and joint brainstorming, that almost always leads to some results. Almost.
The effectiveness of brainstorming can be improved by asking each participant to come up with several solutions to the problem alone. And use a joint meeting not to generate options, but to select the best ones from the general list.
Sometimes this scheme works better, because group work inclines a person to make conformal decisions and the emergence of cognitive fixation. This is a tendency to focus unnecessarily on a single solution. During the group work, participants began to promote existing ideas, instead of searching for fundamentally new solutions.
3. Music and Humor
The divergent type of thinking directly depends on the current emotional state. The first way to raise your mood is to listen to happy music. The second way is humor.
Spontaneous jokes relax the person and turn on distracted attention instead of focused. This contributes to the emergence of non-obvious connections between different ideas. The resulting solutions are new and original.
4. Recall ideas: speak aloud and write
The same area of the brain is responsible as for recall information and as for creating new ideas. One of the benefits of recall is creating associative links with other ideas. Recall information creates a greater potential for generating new ideas.
At its core, creative thinking is connecting two ordinary objects in an unusual way. Recall (oral or written) puts information from the long-term to the working and allows you to perform active mental operations. This way you can combine old information with the information you just learned and get a new solution.
I am convinced that one of the foundations of creative thinking is the ability to see the world without being distorted by other people's opinions, stereotypes, attitudes, and sayings of authorities. To see the world close to reality, you need to be able to treat everything critically and have independent thinking. And to do this, we need impressions and experience.
Sometimes it is so important to go beyond the boundaries of rules and standards, forget "how to do it" and act unpredictably, in the flow, against it or awry.
I believe that freedom gives birth to creativity. Freedom of speech, thought, action; freedom from stereotypes and imaginary judgmental views. So...
Be free and act from the heart,
Aida