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Acting independently, thinking freely, sincerely wishing for something new – each of us can become a truly creative person. Get inspired by creative solutions from creative expert Michael Mikalko.
Entrepreneur Thomas Edison patented 1093 inventions in his lifetime. Agree, this is a strong achievement. He set a goal for himself: every ten days to make a small invention and every six months to come up with something big. Do you find it difficult to imagine yourself as an inventor? Then start your daily mind training with something simpler and more understandable.
Michael Michalko is one of the world’s leading creative minds. As a NATO officer, he organized a group of scientists who began to work on the classification and research of creative thinking methods. Author of several bestsellers, including Mind Games (Peter, 2007), Creative Explosion (Potpourri, 2014). In the book “” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2015) he collected dozens of ideas, games and exercises to develop intelligence. We have selected six of them for you.
Read more:
- How are new ideas born?
1. Write down your ideas
Start keeping an idea journal. Many of us have such notebooks, but not everyone knows how to use them. You will understand the effectiveness of the magazine over time, when you can build analogies. For example, you are chewing gum, and suddenly the idea comes to your mind to come up with an anti-stress chewing gum. You open a journal and write down that thought. After a while, you watch a toothpaste ad that talks about how important it is to maintain human pH. Here you remember your gum idea. And you modernize the idea: what if the gum shows the pH level? If the gum turns blue, then you are healthy, if it turns red, then something is wrong with the pH level.
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- How to develop creativity? 14 curious ways
2. Start a data bank
This is a special container where you can put ideas and so-called “triggers”. It can be unusual business cards of your new acquaintances, original brochures, paradoxical quotes, maybe some small objects of an unusual shape. In general, any “material evidence” of other people’s creativity that will push you to new achievements.
3. Love spontaneity
Promise to surprise yourself more often. Instead of driving home after work, go to a movie or an exhibition suddenly. Try new recipes. Take a bath instead of a shower. Change your sleep time. Change your business hours. Get to know your postman. Wash your car at another car wash. In a word, break the established routine so that your brain is constantly fueled by something new.
4. Sleep awake
Use the technique that helped Salvador Dali come up with new ideas. He sat down in an armchair, and on the floor – near the armrest – he put an iron plate. He put his hand on the armrest, taking an iron spoon in his hand. And he slowly started to fall asleep. When he almost fell asleep, his body relaxed, the spoon slipped out of his hands and fell into the plate. This sound woke the artist. And it was in this borderline state of the brain in which he was that his famous hypnotic images occurred to him. You can also try this method. They say that insights do come.
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- Irvin Yalom: “Creativity gives meaning to life”
5. Draw freely
Leonardo da Vinci also had his own interesting method. He relaxed, sat down at the table and streaked a sheet of paper with arbitrary lines and scribbles. He chaotically drove along the sheet, and then stopped. Then he could look at what happened for half an hour. Usually he saw in this some images and nuances that helped him paint a new picture or make another scientific invention.
6. Master the SCAMPER technique
SCAMPER is a list of questions that can spur the birth of innovative ideas, where
S = substitute? – Replace?
C=Combine? – Combine?
A = adapt? – Adapt?
M = Modify? = magnify? – Modify? = Enlarge?
P = Put to other uses? – Suggest another use?
E = Eliminate or minify? – Eliminate or reduce?
R=Revers? = Rearrange? – Change to the opposite? = Reorganize?
To use this technique, you need to ask yourself the right questions at each stage of thinking about a new idea. By doing this procedure for each stage, you will generate the maximum number of ideas for improving the situation. Now suppose that a paper clip manufacturer wants to improve its product.
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- Does creativity educate?
He can start looking for ideas with the following questions.
- What can be replaced in a paperclip?
- What can you combine a paperclip with to make it something new?
- What can be adapted in relation to the paperclip?
- How can a paperclip be modified?
- What can be added to it?
- What other uses can be suggested for the paperclip?
- What can be removed from the paperclip?
- What can be reversed in a paperclip?
- What type of staples is best?
One manufacturer decided to replace metal with plastic, added color to this and created multi-colored plastic clips that not only fasten sheets of paper, but also mark them – thus another use was found for the familiar paper clip. Think about these questions too.