How to find ideas and develop your creativity?
13 June 2014
Read by 4076 persons
For entrepreneurs and managers who constantly need to use their creativity, the pressure on ideas is high: it is the key to success, whatever their position, profession and field to express their creativity. Finding new ideas or angles on recurring problems... finding new business ideas... product ideas... process ideas... communication ideas: there are many areas.
However, sometimes you may find yourself lacking ideas. Even by discussing with others, even by doing research, even by looking at what is already being done, sometimes you find yourself facing "the blank page" and this feeling of nothingness is a source of uncontrollable stress.
Here are some tips that will allow you, on the one hand, to find new ideas when all the classic tips have been exhausted and, on the other hand, to develop your creativity overall.
Change the environment and conditions of your thinking
If you are short of ideas, it may simply be due to the environment in which you are thinking: in what places and under what conditions do you generally try to find ideas? During meetings, in the presence of colleagues, alone in your office...?
If you don't find ideas in these places and situations, completely change your location to change the conditions and environment of your thinking. If you usually think alone in your office, go out and go to any other open place: parks, streets, nearby cafes. Or wait until the end of the day and go for a good jog or a bike ride or walk.
The place and the methods you choose don't really matter. What matters is not to change the method of reflection, but the conditions and environment of the reflection. In other words, thinking in an impromptu place at an impromptu time releases the pressure inherent in creative people.
Think... without thinking
This method involves carrying out any activity while letting your brain wander from one idea to another. The two activities are carried out at the same time. The advantage is that it frees up resources to catch a new wave of ideas, and to work intensely on polishing and building it. This without forbidding yourself from thinking about something else and then returning to the subject.
Once again, this releases pressure: you are less stressed by the time that passes, or by the idea that doesn't come.
"Chop" an idea per minute
The other method for finding ideas or developing your creativity is the opposite of the first. It is a question of putting yourself in a position to have to find not one but a maximum of ideas during the activity you are carrying out. That is to say, during the duration of the jogging, during the duration of a journey, during the duration of a shower... It all depends on what environment you choose.
From this approach, the goal is to chop up ideas in the same way that a lumberjack chops up logs of wood. The approach is clearly quantitative: it is a question of doing volume, hence the objective of "chopping" an idea per minute... but be careful to be able to note these ideas very quickly. None must escape!
Then comes the qualitative aspect. You are certainly aware that not every idea is bad in itself. So, once your creativity session is over, specify those that you have quickly noted down, so that you can immediately remember what they were later.
Then let some time pass: a few hours, a night, in any case enough time for your mind to have moved on to many other things in the meantime. The next day, reread your notes and see what you can do with them: if some ideas don't seem feasible, ask yourself why. And what could be the solutions to make them feasible. These ideas may be the brilliant ideas you were waiting for!
Philippe Montant
General Manager of ReKrute
However, sometimes you may find yourself lacking ideas. Even by discussing with others, even by doing research, even by looking at what is already being done, sometimes you find yourself facing "the blank page" and this feeling of nothingness is a source of uncontrollable stress.
Here are some tips that will allow you, on the one hand, to find new ideas when all the classic tips have been exhausted and, on the other hand, to develop your creativity overall.
Change the environment and conditions of your thinking
If you are short of ideas, it may simply be due to the environment in which you are thinking: in what places and under what conditions do you generally try to find ideas? During meetings, in the presence of colleagues, alone in your office...?
If you don't find ideas in these places and situations, completely change your location to change the conditions and environment of your thinking. If you usually think alone in your office, go out and go to any other open place: parks, streets, nearby cafes. Or wait until the end of the day and go for a good jog or a bike ride or walk.
The place and the methods you choose don't really matter. What matters is not to change the method of reflection, but the conditions and environment of the reflection. In other words, thinking in an impromptu place at an impromptu time releases the pressure inherent in creative people.
Think... without thinking
This method involves carrying out any activity while letting your brain wander from one idea to another. The two activities are carried out at the same time. The advantage is that it frees up resources to catch a new wave of ideas, and to work intensely on polishing and building it. This without forbidding yourself from thinking about something else and then returning to the subject.
Once again, this releases pressure: you are less stressed by the time that passes, or by the idea that doesn't come.
"Chop" an idea per minute
The other method for finding ideas or developing your creativity is the opposite of the first. It is a question of putting yourself in a position to have to find not one but a maximum of ideas during the activity you are carrying out. That is to say, during the duration of the jogging, during the duration of a journey, during the duration of a shower... It all depends on what environment you choose.
From this approach, the goal is to chop up ideas in the same way that a lumberjack chops up logs of wood. The approach is clearly quantitative: it is a question of doing volume, hence the objective of "chopping" an idea per minute... but be careful to be able to note these ideas very quickly. None must escape!
Then comes the qualitative aspect. You are certainly aware that not every idea is bad in itself. So, once your creativity session is over, specify those that you have quickly noted down, so that you can immediately remember what they were later.
Then let some time pass: a few hours, a night, in any case enough time for your mind to have moved on to many other things in the meantime. The next day, reread your notes and see what you can do with them: if some ideas don't seem feasible, ask yourself why. And what could be the solutions to make them feasible. These ideas may be the brilliant ideas you were waiting for!
Philippe Montant
General Manager of ReKrute
