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ByDarko Savic
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Darko Savic Sep 02, 2020
How to jump-start creativity and get good ideas flowing
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How can a creative person get good ideas flowing after they have stalled? Is there something that gets you in a state where coming up with good ideas is more likely? Do you have a warm-up routine for ideation?
Creativity is about finding new ways of solving problems and approaching situations. If generating good ideas is a part of your everyday life, you know it's stressful when it feels as if you've hit a wall and nothing fresh comes to mind.
How do you get your ideas flowing again?
64
Creative contributions
Build up a hunger for creativity by doing NOTHING
If more (learning, writing, debating) doesn't cut it, go the opposite way. Try less.
Depending on your lifestyle, doing absolutely nothing and not thinking about your creative work might feel relaxing at first. But as soon as you have enough of relaxation doing nothing gets boring really quickly.
Most importantly, allow yourself absolutely no shortcuts to pleasure. No fun social media feeds (youtube, instagram, tik-tok, whatever), no drugs, coffee, alcohol, anything that makes you feel good with little effort. Keep this up until your mind realizes that the only way to have fun is to get creative again.
Eventually, your mind starts coming up with to-do ideas. Don't let it. Remember, you are taking a vacation from creativity. You are on a "diet" in order to build up a hunger - increased potential (creative voltage if you will). Sustain doing nothing as long as you can, then unleash your creativity on the most important task.
The most important task is usually not the one that gives the fastest return/gratification. it is the one that needs the most work. The one you might have been postponing. With your newly found hunger, now is the time to chew through it.
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Engage with people whose backgrounds are radically different than yours
If our job demands us to constantly create new ideas and come up with out-of-the-box thinking too often, it is pretty much understandable that we might find our creative pitcher emptied too often. Moreover, when our working model consists of a regular routine and an iterative environment, coming up with new ideas might be challenging and often this might compromise on the quality of the output.
However, a bit of change in our social setting can rectify this. Mostly, we are occupied by the people in our related circle, engaging and interacting with those with whom we have shared a fair bit of intellectual and emotional background. But, creativity and motivation need periodic perturbations to the idea of the comfort zone. Engaging with people who are very much different than ourselves in terms of experience and background can hence serve as a very good source of inspiration for new ideas. For example, if we are an academic who is engaged in always reading-writing-publishing and grinding in academia, we might not be too familiar with the world beyond universities, journals and classrooms. However, when we occasionally push ourselves to go out in the open world and talk-play-engage with people who are not in our regular circle, we will get to know the viewpoints and opinions that we might have never considered to be existent.
When we interact with people who have a different background than us, there is a strong chance of cultural and emotional novelty to rise. We might even come across some genuinely practical critics of the point of view that we hold dear. It might sound a bit uncomfortable, but to grow, both creatively and intellectually, we have to be confronted with ideas that are strange to us. If we engage with strange people, we can definitely hope to gather some strange ideas that in the long run will add on to our creative understanding and positively influence the output of our job- even more so when our job demands creativity and nuanced observation.
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LW
Lee Webster3 years ago
Your comment seems to make a lot of good sense for creative brainstorming.
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Use this Brainstorming platform as your parkour
Recently I participated in one of the sessions on this brainstorming platform. I started out vaguely interested in the session's topic and added a low-hanging fruit type of contribution. Then I thought to myself - I should be able to do better than that. So I thought about the subject harder and added another contribution.
I woke up in the middle of the next night coming up with another idea on the subject. The idea had roots in a movie I saw the previous day and another, unrelated brainstorming session I previously created - so 3 sources of information came together to form a new idea.
The moral of the story - get into other people's brainstorming sessions with full dedication. It will take your thought process in directions you wouldn't have explored otherwise. In the end, your mind might be able to tie the concepts from the newly explored direction into your main focus area - resulting in a potential breakthrough.
Update:
I recently challenged myself to come up with one idea per day for a year. After a while, my surplus ran out. So as not to break the streak I came up with this process where I go through many idea-starting methods in hopes that something works. Out of all the methods listed on this page, brainstorming on this platform seems to be the most efficient for now. Here's what I do:
- When someone posts an idea, I extract the problem they are solving and see if I can solve the same problem in a different way. Then I post that as an idea. Examples:Juran's idea sparked this one. Povilas's idea sparked this one.
- I try to upgrade other people's ideas. Sometimes the thought process continues in the same direction and I come up with something that is sufficiently different to quallify as an independent idea. Example: My contribution to Diver's idea made me think of this idea.
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Darko Savic3 years ago
This has been working great for me lately
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Introducing novelty into mundane habits
Creativity has a lot to do with producing novelty, those two terms are almost synonymous. One can make breaking habits and seeking novel ways to do things a habit. This enhances creativity. The things you do on a physical level influence the way you think and vice versa. We repeat things over and over every day. While this is, on one hand, convenient and people naturally seek the most energy-efficient ways to do things and then settle in a certain routine, in the context of creativity this numbs the mind. When people get pushed out of their comfort zone or do it willingly they inevitably gain new perspectives/ideas out of it.
Simple examples of bringing novelty into your everyday routines: brushing your teeth in the kitchen, sleeping on the floor, walking home through a different route than usual, etc. Breaking a comfortable habit always requires some energy and there will often be resistance and a certain price to pay, but the reward is a refreshed state of mind. Access to certain resources might limit your choices, but the main frontier for novelty is a lack of creativity. Try to repeat things as little as possible while at the same time not overburdening yourself with that. Incorporating this into your lifestyle would enhance your creativity in general rather than just serve as a one-time solution to restart it.
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Samuel Bello3 years ago
Another way to do things is to stick to things that work instead of doing old things in new ways. That way you get to save time and energy for the more important activities.
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Povilas S3 years ago
Hi Samuel Bello. Can you clarify a bit what you mean? Mundane habits are things that work (you brush your teeth, cook dinner, and walk home in order to get something done), but you can do it in a different way and it will still work, but the act will be refreshed with some novelty. This might take additional effort, but that's the price you have to pay for diversifying things.
"More important activities" might also be boring - e.g. working is important, but if you do it in the same manner for a long time (same repetitive tasks, same working hours, same working place, etc.) it will start feeling "dry" pretty soon. So if you leave time and energy for more important activities it won't necessarily mean you'll get a refreshed emotional state. This contribution is a suggestion on how to approach changing that.
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Samuel Bello3 years ago
Povilas S Even though these "important" activities may be boring, they are the most productive candidates for our attention and creativity. Most people who want to be more creative usually want it so that they can be more productive when executing their important tasks. Doing mundane jobs differently can help work out your creativity muscle a bit, but the increased creativity will tend to manifest in these same mundane things. I agree that doing things differently will have a positive effect on one's creativity as you have proposed but I would recommend that one should practice doing things differently in the areas where they want their creativity to manifest the most. It seems farfetched to expect your creativity as a Painter to increase by tying your shoelace in different creative ways all the time. I believe the main idea is to be more creative and productive while solving the boredom problem is not as important.
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Asynchronous alternation of focus between 2-3 different projects
Here's a hypothesis based on personal experience and some observations of others.
Below is a list of the benefits that you get from asynchronously alternating focus between 2-3 different projects. You are passionate about all of them but the main project is considered to be serious work, while the rest will get by if you treat them like side projects. They may or may not become more important as time goes on and nature takes its course.
The benefits of asynchronously focus alteration:
- prevents you from burning out because switching the focus from hard work to "play" alleviates the tension while still keeps you productive, albeit in different directions
- thinking about and advancing in different fields puts you in a unique position where you can innovate by finding cross-disciplinary connections, repurpose and apply ideas/discoveries (examples: the Boring company's tunnels used by Tesla cars, SpaceX's steel and unbreakable glass used in Tesla's Cybertruck)
- warming up on something that feels fun at the time can get you in the state of flow, which then spills over into your main project that might have stalled
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Samuel Bello3 years ago
It is important to include a lot of endorphin-boosting activities in the mix. Examples of such activities include working out, community service, yoga, meditation, and attending social functions. Some foods are believed to help boost endorphins. Examples of substances that can boost endorphins are chocolate and alcohol. I recommend that the mentioned substances should be consumed in moderate quantities.
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Pursue multiple passions.
You'll eventually be able to combine different insights into unique ideas.
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Read random research paper to develop novel strategies
As far as my field of interest is concerned - Genetic Engineering oriented to Technology and Development – I try to get new ideas (about current and present problems) by reading random papers spanning across different areas of Biology. Usually, I open PubMed and start typing some keywords (DNA repair, protein recruitment, DNA integration) and read the titles or the abstracts that catch my attention. At this point, I start to see if any findings/ methods can be translated into my field. These “input storms “ help me find multiple things that may be useful (as stand-alone or combined). So what happens is that one tab expands in ten and the initial idea changes shape completely. Sometimes it expands so much to lose any sense whatsoever and even lands on frustration because of information overload. This is personally where I struggle the most. All the information seems important and seems to lead to somewhere else and the more I dig into it, the more factors I realize my idea needs to take into account to increase its chance to work out. A single line can easily expand to hundreds or thousands. I remember asking myself “would it be possible to edit the RNA using an RNA stretch like would you do for DNA?”. This single line has become 5 thick pages on my notepad and yet my answer is unclear how you would do it.
So the next question would be, once that you get your ideas flowing how you avoid being overwhelmed (or discouraged) by them?
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Darko Savic4 years ago
As soon as you feel inspired, start working and stop reading:)
It helps if you have well-defined desires but are keeping an open mind when it comes to setting goals on how to reach those desires. In that case, you read with a purpose - you seek out ways that will get you closer to your desires. You will feel inspired when you run into something that can get you closer.
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Light stimulants and psychedelics
Psychedelics have been long known to enhance creativity. They are also the class of drugs that have the lowest risk of dependency. If there's any dependency it's usually mild and psychological. Furthermore, if one doesn't want to consume amounts sufficient to induce substantial psychedelic effects, they can be microdosed. Some of the psychedelics are decriminalized or otherwise have rather loose laws regulating their use in quite a lot of countries.
Many CNS stimulants have the ability to improve memory and concentration which boosts mental performance including the creative process. Two natural, widespread, legal and rather safe stimulants are caffeine and theobromine (found in cacao beans). When used in low to moderate amounts and infrequently their consumption seems to bring more benefits rather than harm.
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Dragan Otasevic4 years ago
If you are looking for random inspiration - microdose LSD or mushrooms then watch a deep debate or a podcast with some thinkers that people look up to. Pause the podcast and go on every tangent, write down the ideas and thoughts as they come to you. Resume the podcast when you are ready for more:)
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Hear what Andrew has to say on how this process works from 36 to 42 minute in this video https://youtu.be/Ktj050DxG7Q?t=2158
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Povilas S4 years ago
Darko Savic Yes, it's interesting. Especially when he tries to explain how psychedelics work. The thing is there's very little understanding about this still. There are few theories, but they are just bits, they can't piece the picture together efficiently (not yet at least). But what he said that psychosomatic stimulation is not good for creativity I'd say from experience that it is. Stimulants like caffeine, theobromine, nicotine increase concentration, and working memory. Most psychedelics are also stimulants at low concentrations.
Stimulants let you remember bits of information that are useful for the task to be done (including creative tasks) and you remember it quicker than usual, so your working efficiency increases. The principle with stimulants is really a bit like from the limitless movie, - you have a lot of different information in your memory, but you can't meaningfully and quickly piece it together (you don't have conscious access to it at once) for the outcome to be very efficient. Stimulants increase this capability.
And it's also how AI works - you feed a lot of information to it, the more the better, it has access to it all at once at any given moment (not like us, our memory is crappy in this regard) and it can piece it together according to the given algorithm to make a meaningful outcome. To me, it really seems all about how much of your memory you can consciously access at once. The rest is an algorithm of your brain.
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Inducing a state of drowsiness on purpose
In this video, from ~36 to 42 minutes, Andrew Huberman explains why we are able to form new, unexpected connections while in a drowsy state (upon falling asleep or waking up).
Anecdotally, Einstein, Aristotle, Salvador Dali, and possibly Edison are said to have employed some tricks to wake themselves up as they were falling asleep. For example, napping in a chair and holding a coin in their hand. When the muscles relax, the coin drops and hits a metal pot, making a noise that wakes them up. Doing this repeatedly would help a person remain in a state of drowsiness for longer and repeatedly. If the person was focusing hard on a problem before falling asleep, this trick could help in the creation of some out-of-the-box connections.
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Povilas S3 years ago
Reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJtW_tl1Z6k
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Ways to induce creativity just before you sleep
This contribution is based on our discussion in the comments to @Juran's post "Hungry, curious, creative." We discussed that our brain is highly creative just before sleep or when we wake up during sleep. To exploit this phenomenon, here are some experiments you can perform to facilitate the process.
- Read about your problem before bed: A study explored the impact of sleep on the processing of information with strongly related word pairs and information requiring the formation of novel associations (unrelated word pairs). Participants were trained on a set of related or unrelated word pairs at either 9 am or 9 pm, and were then tested after an interval of 30 min, 12 h, or 24 h. At the 12 h retest, the memory of the unrelated word pairs was superior following a night of sleep compared to a day of wakefulness. This difference was due to deterioration in memory for unrelated word pairs when awake. There was no sleep-wake difference for related word pairs. At the 24 h retest, when all subjects received both a full night of sleep and a full day of wakefulness, the authors found that memory was superior when sleep occurred shortly after learning rather than following a full day of wakefulness. Also, the authors showed that the rate of deterioration when awake was significantly diminished when preceded by a night of sleep compared to no sleep, suggesting that sleep fortified the memories. So reading more about your problem will prime the brain for the creative thinking that will follow. You may have a fresh perspective that you didn’t have the night before.
- Ask yourself the question that you want to answer: Literally ask yourself the question aloud or to yourself. That propels the intrinsic (creative system) to work. You may then focus on something else to help you forget about the question to activate the creative part of your brain that works in the background.
- Lucid dreaming: Lucid dreaming is dreaming while being conscious of the fact that you are having a dream. However, it takes practice to recognize when you are dreaming. Waking up in the middle of the night and remembering the dream you were having and then going back to sleep, conscious that you were having this dream, can also help you enter a lucid dream state. You can stay in that dream and then explore impossible realities. Stephen LaBerge calls this the mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming (MILD technique).
[1]Payne JD, Tucker MA, Ellenbogen JM, et al. Memory for semantically related and unrelated declarative information: the benefit of sleep, the cost of wake. PLoS One. 2012;7(3):e33079. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033079
[2]https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-playing-field/201207/hacking-creativity
[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG-sDcQiqMI
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Darko Savic4 years ago
In other words, prime your brain with the problem, focus on an ideal outcome, then let your subconscious mind come up with the necessary connections.
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Alternating between intense focus and easy, routine tasks (incubation period)
For me, ideas often light up after I've stopped trying to come up with them. After a period of intensely focusing on the topic of interest, I completely let it go and switch to an unrelated routine task which my brain can do on auto-pilot. The auto-pilot task should be done in solitude and without any distractions (social media, etc) competing for your attention. During this "incubation period" the subconscious mind continues working on the idea. It keeps experimenting, comparing to known concepts, etc. until something finally clicks and a good idea lights up.
During the period of intense focus, I either heavily research the topic or write about it (or both).
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Samuel Bello3 years ago
Activities like Yoga, Meditation, light workouts, attending social functions, and consuming foods like chocolate are possible suggestions for the "easy activities" you mentioned. I recommend these because they are endorphin-boosting activities. Endorphins are chemicals that are secreted by the body. Their effect on the body is similar to that of opioids but to a much lesser degree. They are natural pain and stress relievers that are secreted by your body. They are also associated with higher levels of concentration, responsiveness, and creativity.
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Darko Savic4 years ago
While waiting for inspiration you should keep filling your brain with great, relevant information. Take breaks when you feel you've had enough. When you are feeling rested get back to focusing on the task again. Keep doing it for days, weeks, months if necessary. Learn - think - write - rest, repeat.
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Sensory deprivation
I have not tried this but I know people who have and do it regularly. Sensory deprivation is cutting off the inputs to all your senses. John C. Lilly, a neuro-psychiatrist, created the first sensory-deprivation flotation method for his experiments in 1954.
The best way to perform sensory deprivation is by using a sensory deprivation flotation tank. These are water tanks where you can pay to float in salty water (to make you float) for a certain period, receiving almost no sensory information at all. It’s dark so you don’t see anything even with your eyes open. You wear earplugs to cut off all sounds.
People who are new to this experience random thoughts initially like going over their plans for the day or get bored. But once you patiently pass that phase, you begin to experience the void. Some people say it works like a psychedelic. Of course, people have all kinds of experiences. Practice helps you better understanding and control the feeling. This void, a period of nothingness, helps you communicate with your mind. Since there is no sensory input, the associated stress signals start deactivating until they reach a minimum. This allows more part of your brain to indulge in creative stuff.
You realize that your brain is under a constant pressure of analyzing every input. Input deprivation relieves your brain and releases elevated levels of dopamine and endorphins, the neurotransmitters that make you feel happy. Also, the body is under constant pressure to counter gravity and maintain a posture. The flotation relaxes your muscles and joints. Any kind of chronic pain you have is relieved. This further helps free more parts of your brain.
In the flotation tank, the brain generates theta waves, the ones that the brain usually generates during sleep or meditation. The theta waves initiate learning and intuition and fortify memory. Meditation requires practice to master achieving theta waves at will (without losing consciousness). The flotation tank eases this process and helps sustain it too.
Flotation helps you elevate your problem-solving and technical skills. A version of the flotation tank called restricted environmental stimulation technique (REST) improved perceptual-motor skills in sports [1] and technical ability in musicians. [2] Another study showed that flotation enhanced scientific creativity. Five psychology faculty members took six 1-hour sessions of REST. For 30 min after each REST session, subjects recorded ideas concerning their research. Self-ratings showed that novel ideas generated after REST were more creative than those developed during control (isolated sessions in the office). REST was associated with a higher level of vigor and lower levels of tension, anger, depression, fatigue, and confusion. [3] There is some discrepancy regarding how long the effects last after flotation. [4] More research is needed in this area.
Several people experience hallucinations. However, hallucinations were more common in people who expected some kind of adverse effect. [5] There are spas where the set-up is available under expert supervision.
For those who do not have access to flotation tanks, here is what you can do at home. You can reduce visual input – light, by drawing the curtains and making the room dark. Using a blindfold is a better way but make sure that it is comfortable, not too tight or loose. Using hands to cover your eyes will not be relaxing for your hands. You can use sound-canceling headphones to shut out the noise. Simple earplugs or headphones might also work (depending upon the noise in the environment). The most important thing is to isolate yourself. Intermittent contact will people will reduce the effect drastically. Your bedroom (or the place that makes you feel the most comfortable) should be used. Lying down relaxes your body and helps empty your brain.
ATTENTION: Long-term or forced sensory deprivation can cause extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, and depression. Users should consult experts is they show such symptoms.
References:
1. Suedfeld P, Bruno T. Flotation REST and imagery in the improvement of athletic performance. J Sport Exercise Psychol. 1990; 12(1):82-85.
2. Vartanian O, Suedfeld P. The Effect of the Flotation Version of Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (REST) on Jazz Improvisation. Music Med [Internet]. 2011 Oct 1;3(4):234–8. Available from: http://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/issue/archive
3. Suedfeld P, Metcalfe J, Bluck S. Enhancement of scientific creativity by flotation REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique). J Environ Psychol. 1987;7(2):219-231.
4. Belle Beth Cooper, 2013. https://buffer.com/resources/the-power-of-shutting-down-your-senses-how-to-boost-your-creativity-and-have-a-clear-mind/
5. Mason OJ, Brady F. The Psychotomimetic Effects of Short-Term Sensory Deprivation. J Nerv Ment Dis [Internet]. 2009 Oct;197(10):783–5. Available from: http://journals.lww.com/00005053-200910000-00011
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Subash Chapagain4 years ago
I might sound a bit radical, but I find occasional use of psychoactive drugs (mostly marijuana) very helpful in generating new ideas and associating novel concepts with the existing ones. I am not a regular user of these drugs, but I have occasionally gotten high and found that my mind can become much creative if I do so rightly. For example, when I go for trekking high in the hills, I use marijuana to relax from the body ache, and I find that I feel more connected to nature and the natural environment under the influence. I have created a lot of ideas (I always carry a physical notebook when I travel/trek) for my short-stories (yes, I write short-form fiction now and then), and even while taking photographs, I get new concepts of framing and angles when I am high. This might not work for everyone, but it is one of many ways I find oddly useful to get my creative juices flowing.
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Browsing through lists of ideas
Often when reading through lists of ideas my mind gets primed (inspired?) and my own ideas start flowing. I'm not sure if it matters whether the ideas on the reading list are related or assorted. My lists are assorted.
Here is an example of such a list
I've noticed that reading through lists of random ideas (or problems) a buffer of 2-3 ideas remains in my memory. This enables "serendipitous discovery" of a hybrid idea that is a remix of what got stuck in my mind. Had these ideas/problems not been close to each other on the list I wouldn't come up with the hybrid idea.
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Warm-up writing with a purpose
Check your emails, chances are that someone has been waiting for a while. Surprise them with an amazing reply. Put a good effort into it. Alternatively, cold-email someone about a topic you've been working on. Solicit their opinion or help.
When you're done, go through the email a few more times and see if you can turn it into a social media post - reaching out to friends or followers. By the time you post it, you should be warmed up and ready for some ideation.
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Thinking corner
In this video from 16:47, Tom Kelly's advice (similar to @Darjan Hren's thinking corner):
- identify times and places in your day when you are most prone to having creative thoughts
- be protective of that time and don't let any distractions spoil it for you
- capture ideas during that time
To this, I would like to add:
- be well-rested
- spend at least 20 minutes focusing hard on an area where you would like some progress to happen
- then go to your "magic" time/place
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Study all aspects of the problem you are trying to solve
To even begin, have a well-defined problem that is worthy of your time and dedication.
Don't worry about coming up with solutions. Trying to force your mind would likely only lead to frustration.
Instead, focus on the problem and study it from all aspects you can think of. What is it made of, what are its smallest components, etc. Talk with others about the problem, get their insight. Have you seen all the talks on the subject? Have you read everything you could find on it?
Ideas will come naturally. In the meantime, keep studying the problem and collecting all the missing pieces. Eventually, they will start clicking together.
If on the other hand you don't have a well-defined problem/goal in mind and are just looking to be creative so that "something" starts happening... Are you addicted to the dopamine rush you get from pursuing a new idea?
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Move to a different world
In the world you live in, you are exposed to the same developments everybody around you is exposed to. You experience the upgrades and the way they happen. You see a pattern. As a simplistic example, iphone 3 is followed by iphone 4 and that is followed by iphone 5. You know this so deeply that it becomes a part of your subconscious. This kind of developmental pattern recognition happens in all things you are exposed to. Subsequently, you start thinking in the same way.
This does not mean that you cannot be creative. It just means that your creativity follows a pattern. Continuing with the above example, with your creativity, you are bound to come up with an iphone 6 and then a 7.
If you want to escape it and come up with something radical, you need to stay away from that known creativity chain. Move to a different part of the world. Live with people that do not behave and do things the way you do. You try to do things their way and then imagine scenarios where they can be put to use in your original world. This is a chance event, not guaranteed that you will be radically creative but it is definitely worth a try.
With the world coming together and because of the internet, most of the places are connected. However, there still exist regions that you can move to for a while (or as long as it takes for their patterns to sink in).
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Darko Savic3 years ago
Short of moving to a different world, even working in a different place should be beneficial for creativity
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Darko Savic4 years ago
This is an amazing piece of advice for digital nomads who can afford to travel on a whim and can work from anywhere with an internet connection. When your creativity stalls, just move for a week to somewhere you've never been before - as different from your place as you can come up with.👍
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No personally felt problem to work on
Nothing motivates a person like a personal problem that urgently needs solving. At least that's how it works with me. I might be wrong but I'm guessing this is universal.
Sometimes no problem to focus on = no creativity.
I recently got myself into a challenge to post one idea per day for a year. I was drawing a blank all day until I thought about some of my personal problems that aren't pressing but would be nice if they were solved. I picked one and focused on it hard. The floodgates opened and I got 2 cool ideas.
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Practice Speed Reading
Speed reading exposes you to a lot of new ideas. It is a guaranteed way to improve your creativity since it expands your knowledge base and more knowledge will bring about more creativity. The topics you speed read do not have to be closely related to your main task. It is not uncommon to discover analogies and partial similarities between seemingly unrelated fields while speed reading. Speed reading also helps to improve your ability to see the “big picture”, sometimes from different perspectives. When you speed read, there are some ideas that are learned subconsciously. These ideas usually resurface with little effort when you need to be creative.
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Modeling and Simulation
Modeling is a very effective way to improve your understanding of physical phenomena. In addition to improving your creativity, it can help you come up with graphical expressions of the problem that make you understand the problem more intuitively. Modeling lets you compare your problems to other problems that are mathematically similar to the ones you want to solve. There are cases where you can get the solutions to your problems by implementing the analogous equivalents of the solutions to mathematically similar problems. Simulating your problems with a computer can produce very efficient solutions within a short period. The computer’s number-crunching ability lets you put more effort into being creative since you have to worry less about accuracy. Simulations let you perform virtual experiments without risking your resources since you can tinker with many of the variables and see their effects in real-time.
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Try to experience or Feel the Problem.
Sometimes one can come up with creative solutions to a problem by experiencing the problem when it is both possible and practical to do so. Most other times, just being in the vicinity of the problem . For example, it is easier for former drug addicts to help other drug addicts to break their addiction. It is easier to come by solutions to academic problems in an academic environment.
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Force Yourself to Think Fast.
Deadlines can be very efficient motivators. You should try to set up realistic deadlines for your projects and do all that is in your capacity to beat the deadlines. Other than that you can give yourself some stringent conditions that encourage you to produce results faster. For example, you can choose to not eat until you have come up with a number of ideas or you can stay in an environment that is slightly uncomfortable and make sure you do not leave until you have borne tangible results.
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Be your own opposition
This ties in with Darko's contribution regarding studying all aspects of the problem, by playing the Devil's Advocate and approaching your idea or problem from an oppositional view you will not only be able to test the strength of your idea but it might even open up new ideas or solutions that you might not have considered otherwise.
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Have a constructive argument with someone
Having to defend your work with reasoning or constructively criticize other people's work gets my creativity going. I find that such an exchange promotes clarity of thought. My performance tends to improve when I immediately switch to work right after such a debate.
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Sugar as a stimulant
Load up on sugar. Not the healthiest option, I know, but sugar is a powerful stimulant. Rare are the people who look at it like that because it's so ingrained in our culture. Or we are aware of it only when kids get hopped up on it.
It's not an approach that can be used daily without massive repercussions, but when your back is against the wall, or just to mix it up, sugar is an underrated substance for affecting your brain.
Whenever I ingest a lot of sweets, especially before sleep, I get very vivid images in my head, stronger colours, it's easier and almost more fun to imagine, and I have more energy.
Taking it at night at least saves the day from the crash, yet it might be harder to fall asleep. Still, it works for at least 30, 40 minutes.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni3 years ago
Insulin is another player that improves brain processing and memory. However, that function of insulin, too, is underrated due to the dramatic discovery of the decrease in blood glucose by insulin. As you said, glucose improves brain processing and also increases insulin secretion. Insulin further boosts brain processing.
[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16936707/
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Binge-read the best thoughts of your new favorite thinker
Inspired by a Tweet from George Mack :
- Find a new Twitter account you like
- Use Twitter's advanced search function to filter by username, a high number of replies, and a high number of likes
- Binge read the resulting tweets until something sparks your creativity to go on a tangent and back to your work
Tweets are limited to 280 characters, so by default, the results should be high-signal, low-noise. No time-wasting, pure inspiration fuel.
[1]https://twitter.com/george__mack/status/1371148128947220481
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Use humor to kickstart creative fluency
Humor has been around since the beginning of mankind.
Recently, a group of scientists tested participants' creativity in word association puzzles after comedy (group 1) and horror (group 2). Group 1 was more creative at solving puzzles. Physiologically, scientists say it's because of the increased activity in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) just prior to solving a problem. The region is considered to be involved in problem-solving and attention regulation.
In MIT study, comedians and professional designers were asked to brainstorm ideas. Comedians generally had more ideas which were 25% more creative. When comedian warmup exercises were used to "warm-up" designers, they were 37% more creative.
Certain ways how humor jumpstarts creativity:
- humor promotes a positive attitude toward creativity
- happiness brought by humor creates a strong internal motivation for being creative
- humor changes our way of thinking
- humor is a creative act
- humor encourages creative risk-taking
"The stupidest creative act is still a creative act and that the real gap isn’t’ between the mediocre and great work, the real gap is between getting started and doing nothing. If you’ve created something, even if it’s stupid, you’ve put yourself in a position to do more . . . I’ve seen the evolution in my own work go from posting nonsense to really important work."
Fun fact: The field investigating the effect of humor and laughter on physiological and psychological processes in the brain is called gelotology.
[1]https://spencerauthor.com/humor-boosts-creativity/
[2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128138021000041
[3]https://leadingwithhumour.com/medias/humour-is-a-catalyst-for-creativity/
[4]https://leadingwithhumour.com/medias/humour-is-a-catalyst-for-creativity/
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jnikola3 years ago
Example of the usage of humor in sharing knowledge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XODY8eqbG4I
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Walk It Out
I decided to join this brainstorming club because my life is a not-so-harmonic oscillator, too. Flying high and then hitting the rock bottom is a discontinuous battle that squeezes the life out of me. To stay creative, enthusiastic, and focus better, I developed a walking system that works, at least in my case.
When I hit the wall, (1) I get up and start walking around the office. If I don't feel the heavy load falling off my shoulders, releasing the creative beast, then (2) I go outside and do a few circles around the building. If the stress is enormous, (3) I walk somewhere where everything becomes small, including my challenges. It has to be something marvelous, millennial, and big, such as the ocean, or a forest close to your home.
PS Don't forget to bring a pen and paper.
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Darjan Hren4 years ago
+1 for walking. I've experimented with this as well but found that you actually need to look at movement. For example, looking through the window while riding a train works well as well + you can have a notepad to write. Doing that while walking is harder.
Another thing I find useful is to have a "thinking corner". Always when you're looking for an idea, you go to that special chair or desk or place. It works like a cue to turn the idea generation into a habit.
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Povilas S4 years ago
I'd say start directly from step 3:D You need to distract yourself enough from the same environment and monotony, so walking in circles doesn't help much. For me this is the case. But that's of course subjective and depends on the person and heaviness of psychological state as you say. Taking a walk is a good remedy for all kinds of psychological downs in general.
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Darko Savic4 years ago
I used to do this during difficult periods. I regularly went hill-climbing over unbeaten paths. The harsher the terrain, the more negative feelings it absorbed. That distracted me enough for some productive thoughts to get through.
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Get some distance
Generally, I noticed that switching off briefly and doing something totally different can help. Like going out for a run or cooking or having a cold shower. And when we need to be conscious that we should not carry the baggage of thought/problem when we are switching off. Instead, we need to keep our mind occupied with totally different stuff like an audiobook or reading up about a recipe etc. Not sure if time is a limitation, but if your project/activity can afford a longer break, then consider leaving the topic for few hours altogether and revisit it later in the day or the next morning (preferably early).
Getting distance gives you a new perspective, many times, and helps you see/form connections between existing ideas so that they can be refined and clustered into newer topics/ideas/themes that could be concretized,
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Steven Hawking would agree:) His quote: "It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else"
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The right amount of criticism
When others criticize your work (something that occupies a sufficient enough part of your life), you tend to improve it. This is like a cognitive fight response. When questions are thrown at you, you are more desperate to find answers than you would by wondering about it on your own. This is helpful when you have reached a milestone in your area of work and are stuck there. My mentor used to suggest presenting a poster of my work at conferences at multiple stages during the Ph.D. process. You may find new ways to answer incoming questions. These help you find new ways to tackle your problems, validate your experiments, or improve them.
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Povilas S4 years ago
I agree, - criticism has a beneficial side. However, there's an obvious other side that has to be taken into account. Criticism and lack of approval is a vital motivation killer for many people. It requires either a strong, mature enough personality to withstand frequent criticism, not take it personally and turn it towards one's own advantage (seeing it as a possibility for improving). Or it has to be scarce enough not to discourage a person and just give a healthy balance.
Especially for beginners criticism could be a major reason for giving up entirely. But even for veterans if their idea is novel and challenging orthodox views it might require a lot of strength to keep pursuing it in the face of criticism.
A social environment full of approval and support is a medium in which one's creativity can flourish and open up. Criticism from an emotional perspective might feel like stones being thrown at you when the natural instinct is to clench and protect yourself. From a rational perspective it might just make you reconsider your reasoning, knowledge, fix flaws in argumentation, etc., but emotional aspect is very important for creativity. So the balance between the two should be maintained to both feel motivated and good about yourself and to be self-critical enough to keep improving.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago
Thank you, Povilas S . Good point. I have changed the title of my suggestion to accommodate it.
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Never thought about it this way but it makes good sense. To the poster presenter, the conference serves as a brainstorming session with various experts.
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Watch a movie with the intent to extract principles that could be used for problem-solving
Watch a movie (or a few) with the intent to find within it some higher truths or lessons that could be applied toward solving the specific problem you are currently working on.
A lot of thought and effort went into making each movie. The artists infused every aspect of it with as much value as they could fit within the limited screen time. A movie is a summary of lessons, stories, higher truths, experiences, etc. Your job is to extract that value and find a way to connect it to your problem in a meaningful way.
This could be described as problem-solving based on serendipitous insight.
You should start with a freshly rested mind. Focus on your problem for 10-30 minutes, then launch into the movie and play make-believe that the solutions are hidden within it.
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Miloš Stanković2 years ago
A list of movies that feature distinct problem-solving approaches would be a potentially viral content based marketing piece for the platform.
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Darko Savic2 years ago
Miloš Stanković we should put together a Tiktok video (around 50 seconds) listing the most useful movies to inspire an ideator
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Just today I talked with Manel Lladó Santaeularia about how we could motivate people on this brainstorming platform to also help others out rather than simply focusing on their own sessions/ideas. I imagine watching the movie "Pay it forward" https://youtu.be/URwXr144hlI would spark thoughts about a potential solution.
That's not to say that the movie should focus on a similar topic (it helps in this case). Solutions can come from all sorts of unexpected directions.
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Motivation from ethics and money
Motivation is very important for success and this may come from an ethical standpoint or a financial one. It will be easier to develop ideas that are financially valuable as these are ideas that people will want. Among the most financially valuable ideas are those that are environmentally friendly, medical advances or that involve renewable energy with regards to helping society and not product sales. These areas have lots of funding and time invested in them as the potential for making an impact on life is great. With the personal belief that you can help with your idea or invention, you also need the end result so it is fair to expect a significant financial gain. Along with this comes recognition and some level of fame so it is good to look at the likes of Elon Musk and what he has achieved based on his vision of making something that will benefit the environment. Inspirational figures and stories offer motivation that can focus your mind.
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Creative thinking is a skill
Creativity strikes at random, not at will. However, getting yourself into the state of flow where creativity is more likely can be initiated at will. It takes some discipline and work but gets easier with time.
Our skills are the result of neural pathways built from past repetition. We tend to forget all the repetition that went into building the skills. This makes it feel like we are just talented that way. Anything we practice enough gets easier with time. We get better at doing it. Creative thinking is no exception.
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Write a letter to someone without the intention of sending it
Write a letter to someone specific, but don't send it to them. In it explain what you have been working on lately, what problems you are facing, what is preventing progress from taking place, what it would take for a breakthrough to happen, etc.
As soon as you are done writing the letter, try switching to writing about your work. Plans, goals, strategies, ideas, etc. Chances are you are now warmed up and in the flow for creative work.
Creativity stalls when there is a lack of motivation, direction, or "wiggle room". It feels to me like a flywheel. Once it grinds to a halt it takes something special to get it going again. That can be:
- small steps that compound and build up momentum
- an unexpected piece of insight that is sufficiently big to get the flywheel going
Writing a letter to someone (special) feels like tricking yourself into compounding the small steps until suddenly the flywheel is going with sufficient speed that you can reuse the momentum elsewhere. Writing a letter is easy enough to start even when you aren't feeling creative. So you jump into it with minimal expectations. Then while finetuning the text you introduce baby steps of creativity. As your product of creativity begins to take shape your motivation to make it good/better increases.
I would write the letter to someone I should be writing anyway but maybe do it before it's time. In other words - it's aspirational. Yes, Elon Musk is a good choice. I have one of those already:) I sometimes write to various field experts, scientists, etc.
Writing a newsletter to your coworkers, or a cool social media post would also work in the same way.
Having no intention to actually send it removes the pressure so that you can get started. It allows you to suck at it. Then as you progress you start playing with the idea of making it good enough to be worthy of sending.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago
Will the selection of the person you write a letter to affect your creativity? For example, will you post-letter creativity be different if you write it to your parents vs you write it to Elon Musk? More energy from writing to Elon Musk, maybe?
What do you think makes this idea work? - Is it that after writing to someone else, you start thinking from the point of view of that person and give your work a third perspective? Or is it that explaining your work to someone (anyone for that matter) makes you think harder about it? Probably both but I would like to hear your thoughts.
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Shubhankar Kulkarni as you said there are likely a few factors that make this work. Creativity stalls when there is a lack of motivation, direction, or "wiggle room". It feels to me like a flywheel. Once it grinds to a halt it takes something special to get it going again. That can be:
- small steps that compound and build up momentum
- an unexpected piece of insight that is sufficiently big to get the flywheel going
Writing a letter to someone (special) feels like tricking yourself into compounding the small steps until suddenly the flywheel is going with sufficient speed that you can reuse the momentum elsewhere. Writing a letter is easy enough to start even when you aren't feeling creative. So you jump into it with minimal expectations. Then while finetuning the text you introduce baby steps of creativity. As your product of creativity begins to take shape your motivation to make it good/better increases.
I would write the letter to someone I should be writing anyway but maybe do it before it's time. In other words - it's aspirational. Yes, Elon Musk is a good choice. I have one of those already:) I sometimes write to various field experts, scientists, etc.
Writing a newsletter to your coworkers, or a cool social media post would also work in the same way.
Having no intention to actually send it removes the pressure so that you can get started. It allows you to suck at it. Then as you progress you start playing with the idea of making it good enough to be worthy of sending.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago
Darko Savic It is a great idea. It solves the purpose without any side effects. If you would have sent the letter, you expect to hear back and when you don't, you may get hurt. Alternatively, if you simply write a diary, it won't create much impact since you are not addressing it to anybody. The "addressing" part triggers a whole new set of neurons that help you construct your write-up (the description of your model) in a way that is understandable to the person you address it to. This is very different from writing a diary.
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Go to bed early without any entertainment. Be bored. Think about your goals and jot down any idea that springs up.
If you can pull it off:
- Go to bed early and without ANY form of entertainment. No book, no phone. Just your thoughts.
- Have a pen and paper nearby. Turn off the lights and think about your top goals. Make plans. Prioritize. Strategize.
- If you get any idea leads worthy of remembering, turn on the light and write it down.
- The next morning, start your day by going through your notes and try to expand on them while adding them to your idea journal.
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Getting into the details
We tend to avoid long texts and generally everything that is not easy to get from the first time. The same is true for any medium - whether you read, listen, or watch something, trying to understand the content in-depth is often a hard job, so we tend to skip parts of the text, delay reading/listening for later, etc. We often just get a general picture of the meaning and think that's enough.
Efforts seem to block dynamic energy, so trying to understand the details might appear counter-intuitive for keeping the flow of creativity alive and this is true while still being in the good enough state, but when creative energy runs out and you feel like you're in a dead-end, I've noticed that putting efforts to read/listen/watch content carefully and really try to understand every separate bit of it helps to restart that flow. This is because by skipping and generalizing things you make intuitive interpretations and therefore miss a lot of potentially valuable and inspirational information that was placed there by the author.
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Darko Savic3 years ago
I've noticed the same thing but I interpret it a little differently. When I don't feel inspired (not in a creative flow), I have time to read, listen, consume lengthy content. When I'm inspired, I don't have much time for anything other than my main focus, so I just skim additional interesting content that I absolutely can't avoid.
For me, any content consumption doesn't last long. It's extremely difficult for me to finish a book. As soon as I uncover something that sparks an idea worthy of pursuit, I go on a tangent.
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Meditation
I'm surprised that no one (including me) hasn't suggested this yet. It's one of the best things you can do for creativity. The practice of meditation is intended to put you in a state of relaxed attention, with your awareness being vigilant, but not focused on any particular object/thought/emotion/problem, etc. This balance seems to be the essence of what's required for creative insight to emerge. This can be seen from many suggestions in this session that point to attaining balance between concentration and relaxation through various means. Meditation essentially is a practice aiming directly for that. During it, you are relaxed, similarly like during sleep, but awake and aware.
Many spiritual teachers and practitioners argue that true creativity can only be achieved by having some access to this state of undisturbed awareness or simply conscious being, which is beyond thinking, it can not be derived from mere information processing of our minds.
It's true that some forms of meditation use subtle "objects" such as breathing or mantras to focus the practitioner's attention on, but this is only for training one's attention to stay focused and not to be constantly distracted by thought processes, which is usually the case in an ordinary state of mind. Once the mind is trained enough not to constantly wander away the attention can then be defocused and kept that way in a present moment while allowing experiences (sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions) to simply flow by and be observed.
If you don't know how to meditate and want to learn it, it's possible to do it from online tutorials and even by reading various descriptions and trying to practice it on your own, but it's advisable to have at least some contact with live teachers (preferably not through means of remote communication) to get spontaneous guidance, be able to ask direct questions, etc. I'd also recommend trying many different methods to see what works the best for you personally. Initially, it might seem very difficult to meditate, especially for people who have a very active mind, but eventually, the effort pays off, I'm speaking from experience.
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Darko Savic3 years ago
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld can't say enough praises about transcendental meditation (https://youtu.be/uh7Yru3cHoA). Not many people take creativity to the level he has taken it. He describes his routines in this talk https://youtu.be/yNTmFORn3xQ
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Povilas S3 years ago
Darko Savic Yes, David Lynch is also a big fan of it. However, what I don't like about TM is that it's a very closed organisation, they charge big sums of money for teaching the technique and they keep it as a patent, they even hunt down people who try to teach it for free and threaten with lawsuits. They also claim that TM is the only form of meditation that is proven scientifically to work, which is not true, cause there are numerous scientific studies on various forms of meditation with proven benefits. The technique itself is not some miracle, it's simply mantra-based, what you pay for is interactions with the certified teacher from a TM organisation. I once considered trying it, even went for an introductory lecture, but this whole secrecy and money involved makes it feel sectarian, so I changed my mind.
I can't speak about its effectiveness, cause I haven't tried it, but when it comes to spiritual practices I believe if the practice is really good and helpful it should be made available for as many people as possible so that everyone could benefit and not kept enclosed in a private circle under some patent so that only those who can pay enough could use it. This is simply business and the secrecy makes it even more attractive as a product. On the contrary, there are great meditation techniques like Vipassana (https://www.dhamma.org), which are donation and volunteering based with courses freely available to anyone in the world.
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Talk about it with all kinds of people.
Talking is an activity that requires creativity. What is fascinating about this is how we perform such a task with very little conscious effort. Discussing your task with people who have different levels of understanding of your task will require using different semantic expressions while maintaining the essence of the topics you discuss. This will give you more insight into the subject matter. Making other people understand your ideas can help you generate even more ideas about the subject matter. This can also be extended to writing about your task or even singing about it. You should incorporate your main task into any art form you can express yourself in. Ideas will keep flowing if you keep communicating about your tasks.
One of my favorite ways of communicating about my work is to teach children about my tasks. I like to teach children because they are very open-minded and curious. One usually has to explain things in the simplest way possible. Most importantly, they ask questions that adults are usually reluctant to ask. Another advantage to this; It is easier to rid children of cognitive biases and logical fallacies than adults.
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Get enough REM sleep
REM means Rapid Eye Movement. During REM sleep, your eyes move rapidly in random directions. You are not aware of this movement because your eyes are closed and you do not move them consciously. When you sleep, you usually pass through three stages of sleep before you get to the REM stage. In simple terms; try to sleep until you wake up. If your sleep gets disrupted in the REM stage it can slightly reduce your concentration, responsiveness, and creativity for a short period. To reduce the chances of your sleep getting disrupted, you should try to sleep early. You should also make sure your sleeping space is as conducive as you can afford. It is advisable not to set alarms to wake you up unless you have something very important to do in the morning.
The stages of sleep that lead to the REM sleep stage are explained below.
Stage 1: This stage starts as soon as you sleep off. The sleep in this stage is not very deep and low noises can easily wake you during this stage of sleep. This stage of sleep usually ends before the first ten minutes of your sleep.
Stage 2: In this stage, your sleep is a bit deeper than it is in stage one and your heart begins to beat at a slow rate. Your body temperature also reduces as your body prepares for deep sleep.
Stage 3: This is a stage of deep sleep and it is not as easy to wake you once you have gotten to this stage of sleep. If you are woken up during this stage of sleep you will feel a little disoriented.
REM sleep helps to convert short-term memories to long-term memories. You can have intense dreams during REM sleep because your brain is quite active. REM sleep stimulates the parts of the brain that are involved in learning and problem-solving. In general, REM is believed to start about 90 minutes after you start sleeping.
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Draw a concise summary of the problems you are trying to solve
By the time I figure out how to draw what I'm trying to solve, my creativity is already in full swing.
A few examples:
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Games to warm up your imagination
- Try identifying at least 10 different things in the shape of some clouds or distant tree canopies
- Look at something for 5 seconds and then try to draw it from memory
- (to be continued. please comment if you have additional warmup ideas)
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Seinfeld's writing routine
Jerry Seinfeld maintains his creativity by 3 principles. In his own words:
Fall in love with the process
"I like money, but it’s never been about the money. It’s similar to calligraphy or samurai. I want to make cricket cages. You know those Japanese cricket cages? Tiny, with the doors? That’s it for me: solitude and precision, refining a tiny thing for the sake of it."
Deliberate practice
"I still have a writing session every day. It’s another thing that organizes your mind. The coffee goes here. The pad goes here. The notes go here. My writing technique is just: You can’t do anything else. You don’t have to write, but you can’t do anything else. The writing is such an ordeal. That sustains me."
"If I don’t do a set in two weeks, I feel it. I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the pathway begins shrinking back down. Reading that changed my life. I used to wonder, Why am I doing these sets, getting on a stage? Don’t I know how to do this already? The answer is no. You must keep doing it. The broadband starts to narrow the moment you stop."
Don't break the chain
"The way to be a better comic is to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes is to write every day. After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."
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Respect your ideas
This is more of a metaphysical suggestion for the long-term idea production than it is a specific fix for hitting a creative wall in the moment. Watering the creative garden of sorts.
I do feel that whenever I respect my idea and notch it down when it comes to me, more ideas start appearing in my mind in subsequent hours and days. So even if I'm in bed and falling asleep, if an idea comes to me, I stand up to write it down. I don't rely on memorizing it half-awake and recalling it tomorrow. Because when I relied on this approach, I either didn't remember the idea fully or at all.
This approach is basically giving your unconsciousness the highest importance grade to idea-making.
The respect applies to giving yourself time to dwell on the idea too. Even if you realize the idea was already realized by someone else. Searching for unexplored angles.
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Try doing new things
Looking at my idea contributions on Brainstorming.com, I can definitely see that they are formed primarily by my most frequent experiences. Ideas are mostly related to restaurants, working out, and movies. My day-to-day.
So going outside of your routine and changing it, will do the trick as you'll encounter new problems, new stimulants, and new patterns. My museum ideas (1, 2)were inspired by going to some days prior.
Revisiting activities you deemed as not as enjoyable or valuable enough can do the trick. See what was wrong with them that you didn't enjoy, and think about whether that negative aspect could be changed. Especially with activities you crossed out when you were a child or a young adult, as you were a different person then.
Probably would be best to implement one new activity per week.
Andrew Huberman stated that a good life can be defined as a constant broadening of things that bring us joy. So this approach is a win-win.
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Darko Savic2 years ago
You can also immerse yourself in new fields by looking at other people's problems and studying the interesting ones. You can go on tangents and hybridize seemingly unrelated problems/solutions. Often you will have a few in the back of your mind. Seeing a new problem that somehow relates to one you've kept in storage can give rise to an idea that solves both at the same time
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Utilize the Cathedral Effect
Another insight I got from the neuroscientist and professor at Stanford Andrew Huberman: Studies show that working in spaces with high ceilings improves abstract thoughts and creativity. While working low ceiling spaces promotes detailed work.
While it might sound ridiculous at first, even a 60-centimetre (two feet) difference in ceiling height was shown to elicit a difference. So trying to find a location, be it a coffee place or a library, with a high ceiling might bring some breakthrough.
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It's interesting to note that historically, people in power with the burden of coming up with solutions to big problems, did live or worked in buildings with higher ceilings - cathedrals and castles. If kings or lords were patrons of some artists, the artists also lived or at least worked in chateaus or palaces.
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Hungry, curious, creative.
Although I read in the contributions above that people think you should be well rested and fed to "boost creativity", I always learned and wrote better when I was hungry. It somehow enhanced my focus and triggered the problem-solving instinct, but I was never able to explain it in order to contribute.
Yesterday, I ran into an article which is on a good trace to help me explain it! Scientists did an experiment to prove that hunger and curiosity are driven by the same parts of the brain . They also emphasize that this finding could explain how both hunger and curiosity can act as a motivational drivers. That could mean that a hungry man could have a better ideas, because curiosity led to more information seeking which, in turn, directly led to higher creativity .
[1]https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook/curiosity-and-hunger-are-driven-by-the-same-brain-regions-67992
[2]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-innovating-minds/201707/creativity-whats-curiosity-got-do-it
[3]https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/12/03/explaining-the-power-of-curiosity-to-your-brain-hunger-for-knowledge-is-much-the-same-as-hunger-for-food/
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jnikola4 years ago
Idea: Plasma ghrelin concentration as a creativity biomarker
I recently found a paper talking about a plethora of physiological effects of ghrelin. It's a novel hormone reported to induce appetite, promote carbohydrate burnout, promote lipogenesis, stimulate gastric acid secretion and motility, positively affect cardiovascular system, protect kidneys, brain, stimulate skeletal muscle regeneration after injury, delay puberty, decrease testosterone, inhibit unwanted inflammation and much more. It was also interesting that they mentioned its importance in learning, memory, cognition, reward, sleep, etc. [1]
It is known that:
- plasma ghrelin levels increase during fasting and decrease in feeding [2]
- fasting increases ghrelin mRNA expression in mice and rats [3]
- ghrelin can be modulated by peptide hormones, neurotransmiters, glucose, fatty acids, second messagers, enzymes, etc [1]
- ghrelin-secreting cells express high levels of mRNA encoding beta(1)-adrenergic receptors, which are activated by adrenergic agents released by sympathetic neurons [4]
- plasma acyl ghrelin increased after the α-adrenergic antagonist and β-adrenergic agonist intake
It's also known that the noradrenaline system could have a central role in modulating cognitive flexibility [5], while anoher paper describes the great impact of the noradrenergic and the dopaminergic systems on creativity [6]. Paper from 2020 [7] reports that the noradrenergic system (beta) is responsible for "Problem solving in an ‘unconstrained’ cognitive flexibility task".
Although further research of the connection of noradrenergic system, creativity and fasting is needed, could we suggest the role of ghrelin as a biomarker of noradrenergic (beta) system activity, thus creativity?
Do persons with higher ghrelin concentrations show higher psychological abilities related to creativity and motivation?
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7267865/
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11473029/
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12876464/
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20713709/
[5] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncir.2019.00018/full
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519931/
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519931/
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Povilas S4 years ago
I can relate to this. Just I would approach explaining it not so much from the perspective of creativity, but more that it boosts and maintains for some time the energy and motivation required to act. This is beneficial for all sorts of activities both physical and mental, including creativity.
I noticed from my own experience that while being hungry I'm sometimes more energized than after a meal. This seems logical having in mind that the body uses a lot of energy for digestion and especially after more heavy meals we feel like relaxing or even sleeping rather than doing something active.
At the same time I think that when the body is hungry and on a conscious level you know that you can't or simply won't eat soon this might be like a signal for the body that a certain task requiring energy has to be done first so that you could eat and it releases additional energy resources, likely in the form of adrenaline or/and dopamine. That's how it would work in survival circumstances with limited food resources and the body appears to be tapping into that mode, it's similar to fight or flight response.
I also noticed the same thing with lack of sleep. If I wake up being few hours short of enough sleep knowing that I will do something instead of going back to bed I then often get this energy boost. I think it works by a similar mechanism - the body knows you have to do something before you can sleep again, so it releases the energy required so that you could finish the "task" as soon as possible and give it some sleep. The boost only lasts for a few hours tops and then you get sleepy again.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago
I read the references you cited. That was an interesting study. I think the thought of a gamble might have some additional consequences on the decision made by the participants. Gambling (including winning and losing) elicits a hormonal spur that may interfere with hunger and curiosity. From an evolutionary perspective, hunger is always associated with risk. Any forager risks being attacked by a carnivore when feeding. Similarly, any carnivore risks being injured in the chase and also during competition over food. Gambling is a risk-taking activity and can itself be a variable in the study. Secondly, to choose food between food and the solution to a magic trick, you need to be way more hungry than just 2 hours (as mentioned in the study). Gambling is a strong signal, both emotionally and physiologically. It may certainly overpower mild hunger. Moreover, the participants are certain that they can eat once the experiment is over and they leave the lab. This certainty can make gambling a preferred choice by the participants. As mentioned in the paper itself, gambling was preferred even when there was a physical risk associated with it, again suggesting that the gambling physiology can be overpowering. I also think that curiosity and creativity associated with extreme hunger will be different from those associated with a well-fed body (brain). For example, a hungry monkey will find novel ways (suggesting creativity) to acquire food rather than finding ways (again, creativity) to acquire mate (yes, monkeys do resort to deception and other tactics to benefit). Acquiring food in strange situations requires a strong spatial cognition (where should I go to search for food?), a highly motivated target-oriented innovation (the fruit is dangling on a thin stem, how do I get it without making it hit the ground), and other senses (smell and sight). What I am saying is the kind of creativity observed when one is highly motivated towards a target is different from the one, which is not. Hunger will lead to creativity that satisfies hunger and so on. Also, acute and chronic hunger may lead to different behavioral responses. A person who is prone to perpetual hunger may (although I am not sure) be more creative in a hungry state since that is when their creative juices start flowing as opposed to being satiated. On the other hand, a person who is not accustomed to hunger might experience creativity (not goal-oriented) only in a fed state.
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Thinkalong - think about your problem while listening to someone's lecture
Think about your problem while listening to a high-quality talk on an unrelated subject.
Similarly to a previous suggestion , the idea here is to find a cool youtube lecture but before you start listening to it prime your mind by focusing on the problem you are trying to solve. Spend 20-30 minutes writing about your problem. When you feel you've had enough, get comfortable and launch the lecture. I prefer audio-only.
Conscious effort
While listening to the seemingly unrelated lecture try to extract some principles and see if they could somehow be applied towards solving your problem. Maybe they could provide a new way of looking at it.
For the intended purpose, the lecture should capture your attention only mildly. It should leave your mind enough "wiggle room" to wander back and forth between your problem and the lecturer's words. To achieve this you would either pick:
- an interesting lecture you have listened to before and is thus not new to you
- a high-quality lecture on a subject that is only mildly interesting to you
Peripheral thinking
A sentence from another person is sometimes all it takes to trigger an idea in your mind. Their words may provide important context for the information you already have.
[1]https://brainstorming.com/r/EK9q0T
[2]https://youtu.be/CjVQJdIrDJ0?t=132
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Optimal conditions for ideation
In no particular order, I find these to be helpful if not even necessary:
- Be well-rested.
- Be well fed and hydrated, including any micronutrients the body/brain could need.
- Have a clear goal.
- Remove all distractions for a lengthy period of time so that you can focus on the problem at hand. It could take multiple distraction-free focus sessions before progress is achieved.
- Focus on the same problem in multiple different environments. Literally, change your physical location and focus on the problem there.
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A divergent approach to solving problems and cultivating natural motivation
This might not be the “ultimate method” and might not be suitable for everyone, but I personally found it to be very important for keeping the flow of creativity.
Work on something that resonates at that moment rather than what you’ve planned to work on. This way you’ll rely on natural and spontaneous motivation. Forcing yourself kills creativity. You can have many options and jump between them depending on what you’re drawn to work on the most at that particular time rather than following your preplanned route. Write down ideas as they come to you, work as much on a particular idea as you feel naturally motivated at that time, and leave it be whenever you’ll start feeling like you have to force yourself further. Browse your “playlist” of ideas each time you won’t know what you want to work on/feel lazy/demotivated and pick something that actually resonates with you. And if nothing does – leave everything aside and turn to an entirely different sphere or relax from everything in general. As you work you can have many things within your reach (eg. many windows, files open on your pc) at the same time and jump between different ideas/projects and simply things you do for fun depending on what you’re most drawn to at that moment. Follow that flow of spontaneity. Remember that saying "don’t mix work with leisure"? It’s false in this approach. Doing something just for fun for a short time will charge you up and you’ll feel more motivated to work after. But keep the balance between the two.
This approach might sound counter-intuitive and I know many people would argue against this, but I think this is mostly because of the conditioning of goal and progress-oriented society, rational thinking, and convergent approach being the dominant ones in solving problems. In a divergent way, you solve things more like a puzzle or a collage rather than in a straight line. You approach the totality of tasks/ideas you have as a whole rather than solving them one by one in a “convenient” manner. Everything is connected, isn’t it? So by improving whichever part at the time you affect the others in one way or another. Therefore you can relax about the order and let spontaneity in.
There are psychological tests designed to evaluate people’s creativity that are based on evaluation of convergent vs divergent thinking, divergent thinking being the feature of creative people. But this could also be developed by practice. In fact, I think it would be useful for many people in western societies to practice more of a divergent approach, cause even the creative types are often heavily affected by cultural conditioning which is oriented in the opposite way.
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Darko Savic4 years ago
From my experience, what you are describing above is key to a happy life for someone who is creative. I can also tell you that it's a way to start a ton of half-finished projects which never get completed.
A cool new idea always brings more pleasure than working on something that was cool when you started but has since turned into serious work (the nice surface has been scratched away to uncover a beast). If the goal is to have fun, then jumping between ideas and juggling which one brings the most pleasure at the moment is the way to go. If the goal is to achieve something bigger - that unfortunately requires plowing through a ton of hardship on the way.
Except for humans, there is no other animal species out there that is able to sustain years of hard work for a hopeful future result. Some of us are willing to do the work where the reward is not even expected within our lifetime! Some of us will knowingly invest the effort for future generations.:)
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Povilas S4 years ago
That's right. I agree with this. As I said, it's not for everyone. If you value results more than the joy of the process, or in other words - the joy itself, then yes, you should focus on producing results. But I would argue that good feelings are ultimately what we live for (even doing things for others is motivated by empathy, which is a harmonious feeling) and that making this (feeling good) your priority only produce more of it, making things to go more smoothly for you on a circumstantial level, therefore results then come out as a byproduct of your natural state. So that's a different approach. When you strive for results your happiness is in the future, it's an expectation. If you truly enjoy the process there's nothing to expect for - it's like dancing for the sake of dancing, you don't dance just to come to the end of it. Also, you can never be sure when your life will end and in the latter approach, there will be nothing to regret - you used the time you had for the joy of living. But once again - they are different approaches and it depends on a person to which one he/she is leaning to:)
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Darko Savic4 years ago
Povilas SFiguring out a way to do both simultaneously is how a person finds meaning and produces some "life work".
By being able to focus only on projects that bring happiness at the present moment one limits their options in life. Such a person could for example really want to build a house. When they set out to do it, they are highly motivated and enjoying it. Unfortunately, the house cannot be built in a day. What started as a fun task turns out to be hard work a few weeks into the project. They are then presented with a choice: be happy now and go work on something else, or plow through the hard work and be happy in a few months when the house is built.
Consider this... An additional benefit of doing hard things that bring happiness in the future is dopamine detox. By doing things you don't enjoy your brain reduces the number of dopamine receptors (to help you cope with the hardship) - this means you become more sensitive to smaller quantities of dopamine. Thereafter you find more pleasure in little things. This is the brain's way of adapting to the situation. After the adaptation, you would feel equal pleasure, no matter if you chose the easy or the hard route. The brain finds a balance so that you achieve hits of pleasure within your constraints.
I'm an ideator, I like butterflying from idea to idea. Building this brainstorming platform is the constraint I put myself into. I've been plowing through for almost 2 years. My happiness level didn't change even though I'm glued to my computer and have no social life to speak of anymore:) I intend to regain my social life when the work here is done.
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Download, process, upload, feedback, share
- Download other people's ideas. This is the part where your brain gets the "raw material" to work with. Study the topic of your focus, read books, articles, watch videos - any source of information will do. Obviously, apply some quality filters and make sure the information is accurate. Consider this the "fishing" stage.
- Processing happens automatically, while you take in the info and even while you sleep. The moment when inspiration strikes (you feel motivated to put something into action) is where you move to the next stage. Give it time. It can take hours, days, or weeks.
- Upload your thoughts to a notepad. For the time being, this is solely for you to read and re-read. The goal is to organize your thoughts, see if they can be condensed to higher principles, see if you can make any new connections between the ideas, see how much you can simplify them, then reflect everything back to yourself. Refine everything into a cohesive concept worthy of other people's time.
- Ask for feedback from friends and iterate based on the feedback. Re-read your work a few times, over several days. See if you can refine it.
- Share the final work with everyone and further refine it based on the feedback.
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Do a little bit regularly
If your job (not necessarily in a professional sense) involves creativity and even more so, if it depends on it, to keep the creativity alive you have to find a certain balance between being lazy and feeling overworked. If the circumstances allow you a certain degree of flexibility and you can manage your own schedule, I've noticed from my own experience that it is effective (with regards to creativity and keeping a substantial amount of inspiration) to work a little bit regularly.
If you press yourself to work more, eventually you are going to get exhausted and/or irritated and will need a bigger break. In contrast, if you'll work only when you feel naturally motivated, you'll have long gaps of inactiveness which is not in favor of keeping a spark of creativity alive. But if instead, you set up a light schedule that you can keep up rather easily, you will maintain it together with a consistent amount of creativity and inspiration. You can always do more if you naturally feel like. Efforts contribute to bringing inspiration, but too much of them kills it.
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Help people on Quora
Configure your Quora profile to show you questions for a very narrow area of interest. Only one or two fields maximum. It would be the field you are studying or trying to get better at. Search for interesting questions/answers within that field. Learn from good answers but more importantly, be on the lookout for questions that you are competent in answering.
When you encounter a question where your answer would be valuable to future readers, go all in and come up with the best answer you can.
Answering one or two such quora questions usually gets me in the state of flow. I then transition to journaling about my own ideas, coming up with tweets, etc. If I'm lucky I run into viable solutions for whatever problem I was focusing on lately.
In time, Quora's recommendation algorithm gets better at recommending suitable questions to you. Whenver you feel un-inspired, just check your "answer" tab and really do your best to help a few people. This usually fires up my creativity. Hopefully it could work for you too.
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Darko Savic3 years ago
Questions are often opportunities in disguise.
1. Extract problems from frequently repeating questions
2. Solve them at scale
3. Form businesses around the solutions
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Indiscriminate ideation as a warmup
If the goal is to create many different ideas and you are not focused on any specific problem then you basically need a source of problems to try and solve. If you can solve a problem at scale so that it can be useful to many people, you might be able to turn the solution into a business idea.
Where to find many problems
- Quora questions; A question is often an opportunity in disguise. Extract problems from questions, then solve them at scale.
- Memes; What message does a meme convey? Can you extract a problem the message is focusing on? Can you solve it in a new, simpler, and better way than the current solutions?
- Tweets; If you read them with the intention of extracting a problem, something is almost always there. Can you then solve the problem at scale, efficiently and in a way that hasn't been done before?
Caution
Using social media to extract problems can be dangerous. Their systems are rigged to maximally capture you into an attention wortex. If you are not careful you will soon find yourself mindlessly consuming content and not creating any ideas of your own.
I expand on this here.
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Common principles extracted from work routines of known creative people
These principles were extracted from this article. The article itself is composed of examples from the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, in which author Mason Currey describes the daily routines of 161 highly creative historic figures.
In no particular order:
- Getting into "the zone" by consuming their drug of choice (nicotine, caffeine, theanine, etc). This likely gave them an energy boost and a dopamine/motivation spike.
- Blocking out all distractions.
- Creating in solitude.
- Meticulously sticking to the daily routine.
- Light unimportant creative warmup work before switching to the main creation (reviewing previous work, writing a letter, doodling, etc).
- Drawing random inspiration from the dynamic surroundings (people at shopping malls, tv, taking a walk, etc)
- Breaking rounds of work with something else (physical exercise, taking a rest, etc).
- Visually logging a growing chain of accomplishments and not breaking it with a day off.
- Loving the work process.
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Let go of the wheel briefly
One of the creators of South Park and certified creative genius, Trey Parker, constructs Lego sets whenever he is in a pinch about where the story is going to go and what he needs to do creatively.
As then he is not coming up with what to do, rather just following instructions in the manual. He explains it here from ~33:38 to 34:00 minutes.
It's basically a form of meditation, as he is focused on one simple thing. It can be viewed as a gateway drug for meditation as it is fun and visually rewarding in the end.
A cheaper version than that is to do puzzles. There are also 3D puzzles of objects that are a mix between Legos and regular puzzles. Colouring books could also do the trick. Origami folding. Another mundane activity can be to count the coins in your piggy bank.
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Rolestorming
This is taken from Gurwinder Bhogal.
It's basically play-pretending that you're someone else while approaching a problem that has you stuck. Whether it be Marcus Aurelius, Harry Potter, or Elon Musk. It's an out of box approach and it frees up the mind in being silly itself, allowing for more out of left field solutions to pop up.
This approach is quite similar to a trick in the freelance content writing community that entails a writer to have in his mind an avatar of a person that is a traditional expert in the field they are writing. As to the point of thinking of a different voice while coming up with material. Imagine a long-moustached cowboy with a Texas accent if you're writing about the oil industry. Or a beanie wearing moustached artist if you're writing about graphic design.
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Schedule creative sessions for the second part of the day
It's worth taking into account that the second portion of the day since waking up is better suited for brainstorming and creative work, according to the neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. Meaning that it's the second eight hours after rising in the morning, not the first eight hours, which are more in line with the states linked with problem-solving. So it's worth trying to brainstorm the issue(s) then in particular.
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Forced ideation progression ladder
I'm posting one idea per day and find it pretty challenging when my surplus buffer gets low. The pressure to come up with something good for tomorrow makes it more difficult for me.
Let's say that you ran out of ideas and are drawing a blank but you have to come up with something/anything for tomorrow. Here's what I do:
- Open your draft file or notebook, add to it any ideas you have stored elsewhere. Review what's already there and try to expand on something. Even a little bit. Keep the file/notebook nearby all day long. If it's on your computer, remember to defend yourself from other attention traps at all times. Start with everything minimized, except the notebook.
- Make a list of problems around you that you would like to solve or at least think about. If for some reason you can't come up with any problems of your own then proceed to step 2...(otherwise, skip it for this round)
- Watch other people and imagine what kind of problems they might have (or ask them). Make a list.
- Write a title for each of the problems and a paragrap to describe it. Can you come up with some sub-titles for sections that fit each problem? Can you write any of the sections? Give it a try.
- Go somewhere where you can be alone with no distractions, nothing to occupy your mind except the list you just made. Think about it for a while. Can you come up with something?
- Browse through other people's ideas and see if you can come up with an improvement (this is your warmup). At the same time, see if you can identify/extract the principles by which others have solved each problem.
- Browse through a few brainstorming sessions and try to come up with any ideas that also work independently of the session.
- Watch a challenging talk on youtube, something where you have to strain your brain to follow along (examples: ). Feel free to pause after a while and...
- Review your list of problems. See if you can make some progress. Otherwise...
- Write a draft email to someone, answer a few questions on Quora.
- Review your list of problems again. Can you come up with something?
- Time to watch other people solve problems. Search youtube for "top invetions"
- Extract principles by which they arrived at each solution. Pause after each principle is known to you and think if it could be applied towards any of the problems you once thought about. Secondly, while watching think about how their solution could be even better. How would you upgrade it?
- Review your list again. Time for a work out in silence (no music) for first half. No phone either. Only your workout and your thoughts.
- Workout with music the 2nd half. Think about your list of problems.
- Stop thinking and have a shower, relax (it's a trick, you can't stop thinking).
- Go for a walk, alone. No music, no phone. Just walk and observe.
- Have a deep conversation with someone. Or teach something to a kid. Warmed up from the conversation...
- Write a few paragraphs about the problems you are trying to solve. What makes them difficult to solve. Identify small details in each that would result in some progress if changed.
- If nothing else worked, then this almost always does. Go to bed an hour before your time, no phone, no book, no light. Just you and your thoughts. Freestyle. No more content consumption. You have consumed plenty for today. Now it's time to entertain yourself with your thoughts alone. Have a pen and paper nearby. Write down anything that you could expand on in the morning.
So far this hasn't let me down yet:) I'm still working on making this simpler and more effective. Eventually I will figure it out and reduce it to only what is crucial.
[1]https://youtu.be/hGRNUw559SE
[2]https://youtu.be/_H4xrVzd65Q
[3]https://youtu.be/WGvhFwCrRyo
[4]https://youtu.be/dzOVfFVyhsg
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Wash your(self) dishes
Besides drowsiness, I get the most ideas when I'm washing the dishes or when I'm in the shower. Not a cold shower as it was suggested here prior (although I'm sure that works too) but a regular one.
I don't know whether it's the fact that you are confined to an activity for the time being and don't have the million immediate activity options you usually have at your fingertips, or that you are without outside audio/visual influences. Yet it's efficient.
After all, the term "shower thoughts" exists for a reason.
But there are interesting correlations between the two and those are hot water and the sound of running water.
Would be great if scientists could figure out whether the sense of warm water on the skin has a positive impact on the mind and in which ways exactly.
"During aquatic immersion in warm water, he also noticed nervous system activity is reduced and balance is improved. The combination of these effects may improve brain function with an increase in working memory, language skills and processing speed" - from one study I found.
While running water alone has a white noise effect.
Twitch co-founder Justin Kan also listed washing the dishes as a good meditation.
[1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321640882_Biophysiologic_Effects_of_Warm_Water_Immersion
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Darko Savic3 years ago
I think "shower thoughts" are due to current activity running on auto-pilot while the rest of your mind is trying to entertain itself by processing "loose ends". It helps that the auto-pilot activity is geared toward improving your future (coming out cleaner after the activity) which might influence the creative mind to follow the same concept - "what can be done to improve the future?"
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Listen to binaural beats
It seems there is also scientific proof that listening to binaural beats (around 40 Hz) increases certain aspects of cognition . Creativity in particular. It's important to listen to the sound through stereo headphones or earphones, though.
I don't find it helpful personally, rather annoying, but it's worth checking out as it's down to the individual most likely. YouTube and Spotify versions.
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827550/
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Darko Savic2 years ago
So far, no special results to report from testing the method
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Add your creative contribution
General comments
ByNivari Van der Voorde
What elements would be part of an educational program about diversity and inclusion?
4 years ago
10
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ByDarko Savic
Can you come up with a cool new feature for the Brainstorming platform?
3 years ago
64
ByDarko Savic
Finding a high-signal, low-noise source of problems to think about
3 years ago
8
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ByDarko Savic
How can ideators make a living exclusively by coming up with new ideas?
3 years ago
29
ByDarko Savic
How can my knowledge/skills be put to good use in fields that don't need me?
4 years ago
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ByDarko Savic
Can you come up with a formula for calculating the value of an idea?
3 years ago
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