How to be Creative? Fishing and Catching instead of Inventing!

Are we all Creative?

When thinking of creative people, we tend to think of artists, architects, people who create brands, corporate identities, and so on. Someone who create pieces of art of any kind, perform and execute indeed the act of creativity. But what about all other professions like managing a group of people, working in a retail shop, developing software, working in accounting and so on? Do these professions not require creativity? And what about the things you do in your personal life? Is creativity not required to solve problems you may have to deal with? It seems to me, creativity is undervalued in many of the professions and in personal life itself.

Creativity Undervalued

Having worked for more than 20 years in the IT and Telecommunication industry, I experience many times creativity is not at all stimulated in tech companies. The daily pressure to answer emails, to attend meetings, to deliver the next set of document helping your colleagues and customers to continue their work, etc etc leaves in fact no time for creativity. Also in private life, we spend our time executing the things we need and want to do, while we leave no time for creativity. The result is that we fall into the trap of boredom and stress. When new situations are presented to us that we never dealt with, we have difficulties to solve them, since we simply do not know how; We cannot copy/paste; We have to think for a solution and that requires creativity and creativity requires time.

definition of "Creativity" by http://www.dictionary.com/

creativity [kree-ey-tiv-i-tee, kree-uh-]

1. the state or quality of being creative.

2. the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.

3. the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.

definition of "Creative" by http://www.dictionary.com/

creative [kree-ey-tiv]

1. having the quality or power of creating.

2. resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative: creative writing.

3. originative; productive (usually followed by of).

Anything and Everybody requires Creativity

Creativity is something we require in ANYTHING we do, especially when we want to have more than mediocre results and like to enjoy our daily lives with low(er) stress levels. If we are not including creativity in what we do, we will do the things as we did them in the past, or as others around us are doing; We are copy pasting without questioning; We are getting stressed when situations occur we didn't experienced before.

Although the act of being creative, to create a new idea or to solve a problem is different for each individual, the basic need is TIME. Anything else is for you to discover what gives you inspiration, from watching a movie, walking around the block, reading a book, sitting in a park, to taking a day off work or even a entire vacation.

My Way of Creativity

My creative moments starts with thinking about the issue at hand (new business idea, how to convince a prospect to buy my products/services, solving a problem, ...) in time. I do not particular seek peaceful environments, or block time in my calendar, but use any moment that presents itself, from the couple of minutes I wait at the cash register when buying groceries, the half an hour I sit in the car while driving to me next appointment, to the time I spend in the shower or in the restroom. Inspiration I can get from almost anything, I do not have to focus on something specific.

In these moments I develop different ideas. Sometimes these ideas require some research, sometimes it requires more detailing to identify if those ideas are good enough. When so, I do the work for the various ideas I got, not that much but at least use pen/paper or digitally with a word processor to write down and structure the ideas (high level only). The time required for this phase could be minutes to hours, but I make sure I do not spend more than 2 or 3 hours maximum (depends also very much on what to find solutions for, what time I have to find those solutions). This phase I finish by analysing the results and qualifying the ideas that are good enough. Then I leave those to rest and jump to something else to do. At some later point in time, I go over the ideas again, and make a choice. Since generally I perform better under stress, I not only make the decisions last minute, but I may execute the whole process from A to Z within a short timeframe (hours, sometimes even minutes).

I love to be creative, I love to solve problems, I love the fact I learned how to be creative, and I love the fact I can be creative. It determines part of my happiness in life!

I hope I inspired you finding your way to creativity.

David Lynch on Creativity

David Lynch is one of my absolute favoriete creative persons on our planet, and I underwrite his message with regards to creativity being the act of fishing instead of inventing. Meaning inventing comes from fishing. I have not much experience with the idea of having to go through rough times to come to creative moments, therefore I do not have an opinion on that. However from my own experience I can say that I do not need rough times to be creative.

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