Creativity?

PROCESS | The Doing:

Preparation

Incubation

Illumination

Verfication

NOT ORIGINAL:

Copy

Transform

Combine

COLLABORATION | Trust

To Ponder . . .

In which areas of my life am I most creative?
How do I embrace failure?

How do I experience success?

What are the CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE THINKING that I commonly apply in my life?

What can I think of as an example?

What are the CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE THINKING that I seldom apply in my life?

What are the actions I normally take to DEVELOP CREATIVITY?

What are the actions I SHOULD take to DEVELOP CREATIVITY?

How do I deal with boredom? Do I abandon or embrace the challenge? How do I embrace?

Reading

Design Basics: Design Process pps 4 [Design Defined] to 23 [end of Doing & Redoing]

Developing Creative Thinking

CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE THINKING:

RECEPTIVITY

1. Open to new ideas.
2. Embracing alternative solutions.
3. Actively seeking alternative solutions.

CURIOSITY

1. Exploring new and unfamiliar topics.
2. Eagerness to learn.

WIDE RANGE OF INTERESTS

1. Interest in many areas.
2. Making connections between various interests.
3. using those interests to enhance their work.

ATTENTIVENESS

1. Being aware of the world around as a source for new ideas.
2. Noticing minor detail and exploring details that may suggest new directions.

SEEKING CONNECTIONS

1. Seeing connections among different things that may lead to new ideas.

COMPLEXITY

1. Combining intuitive and rational thinking.
2. Seriousness with playfulness.
3. Passion with objectivity.

WAYS TO DEVELOP CREATIVITY:

LISTEN TO MUSIC.
Get a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Move the pencil over the paper without thinking of what you are doing, just feeling the music. Do this listening to different kinds of music.

OBSERVE everything you see, from the way people dress to street signs. Try to rationalize why you like what you see and why you don’t like what you see. Write these thoughts.

COLLECT VISUAL IDEAS.
Create a scrap book with images that you like and dislike. These images can be from magazines, flyers, photos, product wrappers and packaging, tags, anything that you can paste on a scrap/sketch book. Look at this scrap book often, rationalize and write why you like or dislike what you see. Use this scrap book as reference when you need to create something.

TAKE BREAKS.
Detaching from the situation is a great way to free your mind from the concepts you created in your head. Taking a break almost always allows us to see the task or situation from another angle.

GET BORED.
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.” John Cage. Perfection needs practice, and practice is boring. We can only be good at something after we conquer boredom. Work on ways to endure boredom. Observe what makes you bored and how you deal with it. Do you give up or endure? How do you endure? Music? Taking breaks? Researching?

BREAK THE RULES.
Use solutions that go against the rules. Breaking the rules helps you think of different solutions.

RESEARCH magazines, books, internet for solutions that you think are successful as well as not successful.

DON'T JUDGE, just concentrate on compiling as many new solutions as possible.

BE SIMPLE.

Part of this content is extracted from Launching the Imagination by Mary Stuart