How to be creative anytime, anywhere
Day 17/90 — Being creative on the spot.
I write poetry every day. I write articles (pretty much) every day. I come up with strategies every day and solutions probably every other hour. Both my work and my hobby require a lot of creativity on the spot.
Being creative when put on the spot can be very challenging, even overwhelming for some. I believe you can learn to get better at it. I’ve definitely gotten more effective at being creative.
Here are some things that helped me.
My one-great-idea-process
I follow this process pretty much on a daily basis when I need to come up with ideas or creative solutions.
Force yourself.
A simple exercise I find myself doing quite regularly is forcing myself to come up with as many ideas as possible for one purpose. Let’s say I want to write an article but don’t know what to write about. I’ll take about 3 minutes to write down any possible topic I can think of writing about.
Don’t judge.
While doing this (or any kind of creative exercise) it’s important to not judge your ideas. Just let them flow out of you, then look at them as a whole when they’re all next to each other.
Feel into it.
Once I have a bunch of ideas, I try to feel into each one of them. In case of an article I want to write, I will imagine myself writing it. Will writing about this topic excite me? Would I feel energized by reading research about it? You can play with the kind of questions you ask yourself. By using your intuition, your mind will guide you towards the right ideas.
Try for 10 minutes.
Let’s say you’ve chosen an idea. Now it’s important to test it out in reality. When I choose a topic I want to write an article about, I set my timer to 10 minutes and try to come up with a really brief draft — usually consisting of the key-points I want to write about. After the 10 minutes have passed, I again try to evaluate how I felt about this. Did I feel good writing about this topic? Did it come easy? If the answer is no, it’s not the right idea for today.
Now this may sound like an obvious approach to some, but trust me, if you follow the steps carefully a few times, you’ll be surprised how quickly you become better at spotting a good idea and developing new ones.
Be brave
I believe that being creative is all about being brave. You need to be confident enough in your own creativity that you can sell it to others. Selling an idea requires confidence. Are you excited about this idea you’ve had? If you aren’t, how will anyone else be? Being brave isn’t only beneficial when trying to convince others of your idea, but also yourself. Do you believe a crazy idea of yours could develop into something great? Why not?
Turn off your screen
I’m not saying you can’t find inspiration online, while watching a movie, or reading stuff on the internet. But I do think it’s harder for your brain to process digital appeals. I believe this is due to the fact that you don’t really control the speed of how fast the next one hits you. A book you can put down or read slower. When you go for a walk outside, you decide where you tilt your head. While talking to someone, you have influence on where the conversation goes and how quickly it moves.
All of this gives your brain more time to process each impression and draw more inspiration from it.
Be ok with crap.
Lastly, maybe most importantly, I think you can only become a pro at being creative if you accept that sometimes you’ll spend time on a shitty idea and publish or create something you won’t be proud of. You need to be ok with that. Only when you reach this state, you’ll be able to truly let go of constraints and be creative freely.
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This is day 17 of 90 days that I will be sharing something I’ve learned here in this publication. Don’t miss it.
