Creativity: Tools, Techniques, Tips
When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives to connect, not protect.
Steven Johnson • Where Good Ideas Come From
This gives us a roadmap to doing more creative work. What we need to do is, in the exploration phase, raise the perceived value of doing the work, raise the perceived costs of not doing the work, and lower the perceived value of doing other things.
Dan Shipper • Why You're Not Doing Creative Work
Make it attractive to do more creative work
Reframe non-productive time. One of the reasons the exploration phase of the work is low value is that most of it doesn’t look like work. It’s lots of reading, and sitting and thinking, and doodling, and trying things that lead to dead ends. Non-productive time feels like a waste—but it doesn’t have to! One way to think about this kind of time is
... See moreDan Shipper • Why You're Not Doing Creative Work
Non-productive is often framed wrongly so
Make space for unstructured creativity. You don’t need to create something useful or beautiful. You could doodle while watching your favorite TV show or imagine alternative endings to a novel you just read. In fact, you don’t need to produce anything at all.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff • Creative Aliveness: Turning Life Into a Creative Adventure
Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle, reinvent. Build a
Steven Johnson • Where Good Ideas Come From
Creativity is not a process. creativity is not scripted.
One of the most salient traits of creative visionaries like Walt Disney and Steve jobs is the absence of process.
Process is an organized way of doing things. But they didn’t have a process. They just did the work. No strict adherence to budget or timelines. Just figure things out on the fly.
... See moreIn creative work there are two phases: exploration and execution. In the exploration phase, you don’t know what the thing is going to be, you don’t have all of the information or ideas you want to have, you don’t even know if what you ’re thinking about is important, and any little breeze in the wrong direction might blow you off course. In the exec
... See moreDan Shipper • Why You're Not Doing Creative Work
Your brain works best when you are not instructing it on what to do. A lot of creative work is really just sitting around
Daniel Vassallo • Daniel Vassallo on Applied Antifragility – Visión Periférica Podcast • Podcast Notes
Data collection is inherently creative. Depending on the data you choose to collect from the world, you can begin to see the world from a different perspective. Being a data collector means observing the world with curiosity.