“Jootsing”: The Key to Creativity

Creativity: “I can’t get new ideas staring at a blank page. Creativity, for me, requires motion. When you go on a walk, you can turn your world into an idea-generating sensorium, and ideas will spring up from the most unlikely sources. There is one thing that’s absolutely certain about creativity: It’s an active process, not a passive one. The best... See more

The framework for Strategic Intuition calls the moment before a creative spark a state of ‘presence of mind’, a moment in which diffuse-mode thinking connects the dots. Research suggests this is a pretty common occurrence:

In a 2019 study, 98 professional writers and 87 physicists recorded their most creative idea each day, as well as what they wer

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Our ideas, too, will disappoint us if we don’t give them the right environment to develop in. They’ll be shallow, derivative, dull, repetitive, or take too long to show up. Or they’ll just not show up at all. We must find the perfect glass jar and lid for them to appear in.

What is that perfect glass jar, though? Our ideas appear primarily in one s... See more

What is it about fooling around while having fun that enhances creativity? By rearranging actions or thoughts, play generates novel ways of dealing with the environment, most of which lead nowhere but some of which may turn out to be useful — often at a much later date. Play is also about breaking away from established patterns and combining action... See more

To come up with new ideas, you have to have space to be messy, to procrastinate, and to let your mind wander and free-associate. But there needs to be a balance. You eventually need to channel it into something concrete, or you won’t produce anything.