Transcripts
1. Class introduction: Creativity is something
a lot of people consider a talent that
only a select few possess. However, it's a
skill that can be developed and improved
with breakfast. Hello, and welcome to
this course on how to be more creative.
My name is Robin. I run a small creative agency in Belgium and I'm excited to share my insights and experience with you on how you can
become more creative. In this course, I want
to help you unleash your creativity and tap into your full
creative potential. Whether you're an
artist, writer, entrepreneur, or just someone looking to bring more
innovation into your life. This course is designed
to provide you with practical tips and techniques
to boost your creativity. To do that, we'll focus on three key areas in this course. In the first part,
we'll explore the link between physical
activity and creativity. You will learn how staying active and incorporating
movement into your daily routine can help you think more clearly
and creatively. In the second part,
we'll talk about the benefits of
embracing boredom. You'll discover how giving
yourself space and time to be bored can actually lead to some of your most innovative ideas. In the final part, we'll really get
our hands dirty and dive into the specific
ways that I hope both my clients and my
team members come up with more creative ideas in
brainstorming sessions. You'll learn how to push past creative blocks and
come up with fresh, new ideas, even when they
might seem bad at first. So no matter your experience
level or background, I am confident that this
course will provide you with valuable insights
and actionable steps to boost your creativity. I hope that sounds
interesting or useful to you. If it does, let's get started.
2. What is creativity?: Hi again and welcome to the first part of our
course on creativity. Let's start with a
very basic question. What is creativity? Creativity is often
thought of as an innate ability or talent that only a select few process. However, the truth is
that creativity is a skill that can be developed
and honed with practice. At its core, creativity is
the ability to come up with new and original ideas,
solutions, and approaches. Creativity is not limited to the arts, are
creative industries. It's present in
all areas of life, from problem-solving
in the workplace to finding new ways to
entertain ourselves. Creativity is not just
about being original, but also about making
connections between seemingly unrelated ideas and finding novel solutions
to complex problems. One important aspect of
creativity is divergent thinking, which is the ability
to come up with multiple solutions to a problem. Unlike convergent
thinking, which focuses on finding
one correct answer, divergent thinking allows
for a wide range of possibilities and encourages exploration
and experimentation. As you will see in the
rest of this course, this area of exploration and experimentation is key
in generating new ideas. Another key element of creativity that I will
try to address in this course is the
willingness to take risks and embrace failure. Creative thinking often
involves stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying new things which can be
scary and uncertain. However, it is through taking risks and learning
from mistakes are learning from each other's
mistakes that we can grow and develop our
creative abilities. Finally, creativity is
not a solitary activity. Collaboration and exposure
to diverse perspectives and experiences can really fuel creativity and lead to even
more innovative ideas. So in summary, creativity
is a skill that can be developed through
divergent thinking, risk-taking, and collaboration. And the rest of this course, we will explore some
practical ways to cultivate and enhance
your creative abilities.
3. Chapter 1: Physical activity: So now that we have a clear understanding of
what creativity actually is, we can start with the
first way that you can actually improve your
own creative potential. There seems to be a
surprising connection between physical
exercise and creativity. And if you live a very
active lifestyle, this probably sounds
very interesting to you. But if you're not a very active
person or sporty person, please don't click
away just yet. I'm not here to give
you another lecture on how important exercise is. But since there seems to be a
connection with creativity, I thought it was at
least worth exploring the topic and mentioning
possible benefits. The link between
physical exercise and improved health in both body
and mind is well-known. But recently, scientists
have found that an active lifestyle can also
make you more creative. Researchers at the
University of grads analyze the impact of regular exercise on
the human imagination and found a clear relationship between healthy lifestyles, positive moods, and
innovative thinking. The study I'm referring
to was done on a group of 79 adults, 18-33 years old, so
only young people. And it was conducted
over a five-day period. The researchers recorded the everyday bodily
movements of participants. And participants completed a
series of invention tests to assess their creativity levels while also self-reporting
their moods. Now, while the
physical reaction of exercise on bodily health can obviously be
directly measured, the link between an
active lifestyle and creativity is a little
bit more abstract. One theory proposes
that the endorphins, increased blood flow and
other physical attributes of regular exercise
promote a happiness boost, which helps fuel original
or abstract thoughts. To this, this notion, the grads scientists applied their results to
statistical data from other studies to increase
their sample group and isolate which factors could
have influenced performance. Study participants with
active lifestyles proved more creative than those
with sedentary habits, but extremely vigorous
exercise performed no better than moderate exercise in boosting creativity levels. Also interestingly, active participants,
although more creative, we're not always more happy
than they are inactive beers, which suggests that
movement rather than happiness was
actually the catalyst for being more creative. Now, it's important
to note that because this study was associational, it cannot tell us if being more active directly causes
us to be more creative, but it does at least prove that activity and
creativity are linked. That's it, as well as making your creativity
flow more freely. Regular exercise can also
stimulate your brain to help prevent or tackle
mental health conditions. Because getting out and
about on runs, walks, or other regular physical
pursuits decreases the risks of both dementia and bouts of depression by 30%. Since our brain needs to
operate at the top of its game, in order to actively
come up with good ideas, I would recommend
keeping it healthy by doing some kind of physical
exercise regularly. And so since it's proven that moderate exercise
is just fine, this doesn't need to be
intense physical exercise. Just going for a regular
walks can be enough.
4. Capter 2: Embrace boredom: Boredom is usually seen
as a negative feeling. It happens when your
mind is looking for stimulation but can't find it, which can be a very
frustrating experience. But boredom sparks
significant activity at the subconscious
level in your brain. Those quiet, boring times
allow your mind to wander, which helps rewiring your brain. And that is why
boredom can also be a good thing and make you
a more creative person? The problem is that many
people in the world these days actively try to eliminate every
moment of boredom. We usually quickly
get our phones out or start browsing
the Internet or listened to music because being bored doesn't
feel like a good thing. Now, if you want to become
a more creative person, I would argue that you should
actually try to lean into boredom and actively incorporate
boredom into your days. So you might ask, how do you incorporate
boredom into your day? There are three healthy ways
that you can go about this. First, choose the
right activities. Everyone has those boring, repetitive work tasks, but
they're not all created equal. E.g. building a pivot table and analyzing data in Excel could be described
as a boring task, but it requires a high level
of focus and mental energy. Other activities like
stuffing envelopes for a marketing event or organizing the files
on your desktop. Don't take that much focus. If you're looking to incorporate more boredom into your day, look for the latter
type of activity. Simple tasks that allow
your mind to wander off. It's also important
to note that you shouldn't confuse
boredom with relaxation. Activities like
yoga or meditation, which are designed to
promote tranquility, don't lead to boredom
because the whole point of those activities is to read
your mind of stimulation. And remember, boredom
happens when your mind is actually trying but failing
to find that stimulation. The second way that you
can build more boredom into your day is by
banishing distractions. Let's be honest, for
most people me included. It's our attachment to
smartphones that is very much preventing us from
experiencing boredom. We're actively trying
to swipe the end, scroll the boredom away. But in doing that, we're actually making ourselves
more prone to boredom. Because every time we
get our phone out, we're not allowing our mind to wander and solve
our own boredom. Problems, which the mind is actually capable
of doing by the way, to tap into pure boredom, we need to look. And that means next
time you're in the elevator or waiting for the coffee machine
to start brewing. Tried to avoid taking your smartphone out to
start mindlessly scrolling. Use these pre-built moments
of quiet to your advantage. If you really need help
keeping yourself off your phone or away from
sites like YouTube, Reddit, or even Skillshare. There are plenty of apps
that allow you to lock your phone or blacklist websites at certain times of the day. And I understand these might sound like pretty
extreme measures to take, but if you consistently catch herself browsing
through distractions, they might be the
right solution for you to go back to work or enjoy a few moments of what I didn't call positive boredom. And then the third way
that you can embrace boredom is by avoiding
overbooking herself. It's easy to accept
every meeting, invite scheduled
coffee chats with new people and eat lunch
with your coworkers. But at the end of the day, this might mean that you didn't have anytime to
yourself to be bored. And because it's
hard to predict how your days will look at the
beginning of the week. It's important to
strategically block off some boredom time
in your calendar. Boredom is like a muscle and if you don't make time to train it, you will probably lose it. So set aside some
time for boredom in your calendar and don't allow people to schedule
overlapping meetings. I do this every week myself. And beginning, I
was a bit afraid to explain it to
clients or co-workers, but it has really proven to be tremendously
valuable to my work. And it allows me to
be much more present during the times that
I do take meetings. So I'm sure everyone
around me can also feel the benefits of me scheduling
boredom into my calendar.
5. Chapter 3: Generate many ideas: So obviously, generating ideas is a critical part of
the creative process. Whether you're looking for
a solution to a problem, brainstorming new product ideas, or simply exploring
new creative avenues. The ability to generate a large quantity of
ideas is essential. In fact, my experience
is that this is the single most common thread amongst consistent
creative thinkers. The most successful
creative thinkers are often those who generate the largest amount of
quantity of ideas, even if many of those ideas
are not initially great. So take a moment to come up with as many ideas around a problem as your
brain can generate, even if they seem silly,
stupid, or realistic. Since creative
people are prolific, idea generators,
remember that they typically have a lot
more Mrs. and hits. And in order to get your mind warmed up for
generating many ideas, I have a list of creative brainstorm
starters that I use with my co-workers and clients before we start a
brainstorm session. 100 ways to is the ideal opener for your
brainstorming session. The idea behind it is
to first stimulates your creative brain with
an imaginary challenge, and only then to consider the real
challenge of the meeting. So we ourselves
regularly use it during the first 5 min of
a creative meeting. What you do specifically is you give everyone a
sheet of paper and a pen and make up
a scenario that starts with 100 ways to, so e.g. 100 ways to make
money with one cow or 100 ways to
drink from a glass. Everyone then gets
five-minutes to write down as many
ideas as possible. After which all ideas are
bundled into one long list. A possible variation
on 100 ways to, is one of our favorites. Create a grid of ten or 12
squares on a piece of paper. At the top left, draw an apple or some
other generic object that has nothing to do with
the brainstorm itself. And then draw at
least nine ways. Other ways in 10 min
of how you could represent an apple,
anything goes. So an apple in slices, a jar of apple sauce, an orange, a MacBook
with an Apple logo, etc. Then it's time for a discussion. See what similarities
your drawings have and discuss where they come from because ideas are often similar
or recognizable. And the reason for this can be found in shared experiences, inspiration from
well-known brands, etc. With this exercise, you're not only get your own
creativity to work, but you also
immediately discover how much variety there
is in your group and which lines of thinking
you naturally having common and afterall in a
brainstorming session, it's especially important
to first generate different lines of thought and only after bring them together. So if you're brainstorming
group comes up with many of the same ideas, you might consider inviting some more diversity
to the table. The third option is
always and never. If you have a sit down or
brainstorm in a team about a specific process than
always and never is a nice way to trigger
concrete ideas. E.g. you have a meeting about
the onboarding process of new employees and you
get stuck coming up with functions,
workflows, concepts, etc. Taking a few minutes
to think about how the onboarding process should always be and then how
it should never be, can create a clear visual
word and concept map that easily fuels features,
workflows, and concepts. Our last creative warm-up is a little shorter than we
call it from a to Z. We start by writing each
letter of the alphabet, one after the other on
the sheet of paper. And once everybody is ready, the moderator of the
meeting chooses a category, example, fruit or countries. And everyone writes down
one item from the category as quickly as possible
in chronological order. Per letter of the alphabet. After 3 min, the
moderator will call stop, and we show who has
reached which letter. Those are our four
brainstorm starters that you can use next time that you want to
warm up your brain before a creative meeting or a
brainstorming session. I guarantee they will help you come up with
more creative ideas. And they are especially valuable if you're
working with other people because they're designed
to help you overcome a fear of bad or useless ideas. And often, we already evaluate our own ideas before we mentioned
them to a group. And when we consider
them stupid, they never even get mentioned. And these brainstorms starters, are designed to help everyone
in a group realized that your initial line
of thought behind an idea might inspire
someone else. So even if your initial
idea isn't great, the line of thought
behind it might trigger a better idea and
someone else's brain. And that then allows the group to come up with more good ideas. In the end.
6. Class Project: So the objective of your class project is to apply the brainstorming
techniques that you learned in the previous part of
this class to generate a large quantity of ideas for a specific problem or challenge. The specific
instructions are, first, choose a problem or challenge
that you'll want to solve. This could be a personal
or professional challenge or something related to
a hobby or interest. Second, use one or more of the brainstorming techniques
discussed in the class to generate as many ideas as possible for solving the
problem or challenge, you could use 100 ways to
grid Always and never, or from a to Z or any other technique that
you can find effective. Third, write down all the ideas on a sheet of paper or
a digital document. Don't judge our
filter the ideas yet. Just write them down as they
come to you than forth. Review the list of ideas
and select the top three or five that you think are the most feasible and creative. After debt, you develop a plan to implement one or more
of the selected ideas. This could be a prototype, a sketch, a design, or any other tangible outputs that demonstrates your idea. And then six, share
your plan and the selected idea with the class by posting it to the
project gallery, be sure to explain your thought process
behind your selection. And then optionally, a
seven step is to comment on at least two other students
projects and provide constructive feedback on their
ideas and implementation. By completing this project, you will practice the
brainstorming techniques that I've taught
you in this class. You can apply creative thinking to a real problem or challenge. And then you can receive
feedback from your peers. And obviously I will look to
give some feedback as well.
7. Conclusion: Congratulations, you have now completed my course on
how to be more creative. I very much hope that this
course has equipped you with the skills and
mindsets you need to tap into your full
creative potential. As a small recap. In part one, we explored the link between
physical activity and creativity and learned how regular exercise can help
boost cognitive function, increase energy levels,
and reduce stress, all of which can help
improve creative output. In part two, we looked at the often overlooked benefits of boredom and discussed how embracing moments of stillness
and disconnection can spark creative inspiration
and lead to new insights. In part three, we focused on generating a lot of
ideas, even bad ones, and learned how to overcome
creative blocks and harness the power of
quantity over quality. Especially when you're
working with other people. Because your line of thought
might inspire someone else. By incorporating the
lessons and techniques from these three chapters
into your daily life, you'll be well on your way to unlocking your full
creative potential. Remember to stay active,
embrace boredom, and generate ideas
without fear of failure. Thank you very much
for joining me on this journey To
becoming more creative. I hope that you find this course valuable
and that you will continue to explore and develop your own unique
creative process. Please consider reviewing my
course and keep creating.
Robin Denis, Entrepreneur & freelance creative
