50 Ways to Think Creatively

This morning I was reflecting on creative thinking for my newsletter and decided to make a list of what came to me as it emerged, stopping after the first 50 concepts:

1. Give your Creative Self space, time and attention
2. Be curious and aware - wonder about, ponder and reflect
   
3. Have more questions than answers
4. Challenge assumptions and norms - your own, others, societies
5. Get clarity about exactly what you are trying to solve or envision and why
6. Turn problem statements into vision statements
7. Record your thoughts and ideas
8. Have brainstorming buddies and a creativity support team
9. Break patterns and habits - consciously do something different
10. Use the body - walk, dance, move in non-habitual ways - as a creative resource
11. Surround yourself with diverse types of people and situations
    
12. Use reverse or opposites thinking
13. Look for the story behind or about something
14. Meditate - cultivate presence and mindfulness
15. Live in terms of exploration and discovery, not just solutions or right answers
16. See uncertainty as an invitation to discover
17. See mistakes as an invitation to create
18. Suspend judgment as you explore and experiment
19. Think in terms of "What if?" about seemingly obvious things
20. Surround yourself with life-giving and inspiring people, images and objects
21. Justify why something works even before you know why - make it up as you go along
22. Tell your own Creativity Story and identify the beliefs you have about yourself as a creative person. Make up a second version with you as the SuperCreative Hero
23. Experiment without needing it to work - let go of attachment to outcomes
24. Use visual, metaphorical and analogical thinking - not just analytical
25. Thinking terms of what works rather than the one right way
26. Develop positive beliefs about creativity and you as a creator
27. Self-creation - think of yourself as a Creator always recreating yourself
28. Engage all of the senses - sight, touch, taste, smell, sound
29. Use different types of music in the background while thinking
30. Think of your vision or challenge in terms of attributes: shape, size, color, texture
31. Use the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. technique with your ideas
32. Read up on creative thinking techniques and DO them to get practice
33. Learn to listen to your intuition to follow hunches and discern ideas
34. Be wiling to break rules, and then break them again
35. Cultivate your inner bon vivant - have fun, laugh, play
36. Embrace, rather than avoid, ambiguity as an essential part of the creative process
37. Allow time to stay immersed in the question
38. Take improv theater classes to feel more comfortable creating in real time
39. Animate concepts and ideas - endow them with human or other characteristics
40. Write out the unique ways you already are creative
41. Use, and value, the whole brain - including the visual, intuitive and kinesthetic
42. Draw or paint concepts
43. Create your own rituals
44. Adopt alternative views of reality
45. Pretend your are someone/thing else while problem solving or creating
46. Embrace being wrong as a worthwhile part of the creative process
47. Allow discomfort to be an acceptable part of the process
48. Give time for divergence as well as convergence - and before it
49. Value imagination as much as knowledge
50. Finally, there is no substitute for Passion - find what is alive for you and create from there
    
    Michelle James ©2008
    

Comments

[Antonio Dias]

A very good list! It also implies that one does not expect one single way to be sufficient, that there's no one answer, and we need to embrace the multitude. Just listing fifty elements instead of the usual magic/gimmick seven or twelve breaks through those common expectations.

Looking forward to following your blog!

[Michelle James]

Thanks so much, Antonio! Yes, I feel very strongly that there are as many "ways" to be creative as people can imagine...this list is just a few of them...

[Gregg Fraley]

Michelle this is brilliant. This is a book, you've just outlined it.

[Michelle]

Thanks so much, Gregg! You know, I had considered that...thanks for this timely nudge to get to that sooner rather than later...