Written by Leo Widrich
From all the research I have read, this is the most important thing to take away I found: Every day, everyone of us is extremely creative. The trick is not to optimize for how to spark your creative spirit. The trick is to make sure you capture it, whenever it happens.
Instead of looking for better ways to brainstorm or otherwise come up with ideas, the key is to not let go of the tiny, fragile ones, once they enter our heads.
Here are some of the best ways that some of the most successful people manage to capture their ideas:
Keep a notebook with you at all times, even in the shower
This is by far, the most successful technique to capture more of your creativity every day: a simple notepad. What is extremely difficult, is to keep a notepad with you at all times. If even Richard Branson forgets ideas as quickly as they enter his head, how can we expect to be any different. For that exact reason writing everything down, even if doesn’t seem that important at the time is absolutely crucial says Drew Hansen:
“Don’t judge [your ideas] at this stage, either. There’s a reason they occurred to you this way.”
With that, the emphasis really lies on “all times”. It is easy to bring a notepad to the office or have it lying on our desk. Yet, that’s not when our most creative moments happen. Here are some of the areas where we typically forget to keep a notepad:
In your car
In the gym
Whilst Running
While grocery shopping
In the shower
These are some of the most typical activities where our creative moments happen, capturing them then and there is absolutely crucial. As for the shower, don’t worry, I recently discovered Acqua notes as a great way to capture your ideas:
Plan disengagement and distraction: The outer – inner technique
Similar to what Shelly Carson from Harvard called “the incubation” period, I’m using a technique that has greatly helped me to capture this. I call it the “outer-inner” technique.
I generally start my day with the most important task for Buffer. Say this is a blogpost:
I will do all the research, jot down notes into my word editor and not worry at all about the actual blogpost. That is the first outer task. Then I have a few inner task follow. I will respond to emails, might have a brief chat with the team and do other tasks. Then, towards the end of my day, I get back to the second half of the outer task. I would sit down and then actually write the article, edit pieces and put into publishable form.
The amazing thing that happens is that even I don’t work on the blogpost during my inner tasks, my subconscious brain does. It will do all the work, and then gradually present the solutions to me when I get back to working on it later on.
Overwhelm your brain: Make the task really hard
Another very well researched technique is to overwhelm your brain. Have you ever started to work on a task, where you quickly realised was insanely hard and you will most likely fail solving it? Keep working on it says Robert Epstein.
If you are a programmer, try to solve something you’ve never attempted before and always thought you can only do a lot later in your career, as a writer, write a piece longer then you think you can write. Your brain will be put in a shock situation and naturally engage more of your creative area then it normally would. And although you might not succeed at the task at first, you will find that other tasks will come a lot easier through your increased brain activity then.
Quick last fact: “The left side of our brain manages creativity” myth
Ever since I went to elementary school, I was taught that “For creativity, use your left side of the brain!” Fortunately, that is not at all true:
“In the 1970s, based on studies of split-brain patients, the idea that the right hemisphere “controlled” creativity became very popular, especially in the public’s imagination. This model is now considered overly simplistic and outdated.”
Instead, creativity happens in multiple areas all across our brain, best aligned with the 3D model you can see above.
I tried to bust as many of the common myths around creativity above as possible and I’m sure there is lots more that you’ve discovered in the past! What are your best tips for working creatively? I’d love your thoughts in the comments.
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