Jump start the creative process
Did you ever get an idea seemingly out of nowhere? Of course you have. It happens to us all the time. Usually when we least expect it.
You’re riding in the car or on a plane or train. You’re playing with your dog. You’re out for a morning jog. Bam! A great idea strikes you for that project you’re working on. You write it down on a scrap of paper. Or, if you’re a flake like me, you don’t have a pen, so you call your own voice mail.
Of course, the idea didn’t come totally out of the blue. You can’t come up with a solution to a problem you are unaware of. You must have planted a seed at some point; five days ago, this morning, 30 minutes ago,… In Do-it-yourself Lobotomy workshop* terms we call it “ask the question early.” Everyone does it. But do you do it consciously? Do you do it consistently? It’s an amazing way to jump start the creative process and a great means of time management, too.
(* The Do-it-yourself Lobotomy is a professional development workshop we’ve conducted for over a quarter of a million people. “Ask the question early” is one of many “creative thinking “tools” covered in the workshop.)
I speak of time management in regards to creative thinking because in poll after poll we conduct “lack of time” is considered one of the major barriers to creative thinking.
Think about how you use your time in creative pursuits. If you have something due next Tuesday when do you start it? Be honest. Most people say, “Monday.” Some ask, “When Tuesday?”
Yeah, we’re all up against it. Busy on other things. Well, in the spirit of “asking the question early” I say, fine, don’t work on it until next Monday or Tuesday, but spend 20 minutes with the problem now. Don’t have 20 minutes? Spend five. Just visit the problem now and you don’t have to work on it until next week. Your subconscious mind will.
“Excuse me,” you say, “your what-conscious mind?”
No, this is not as mysterious as it seems. You see, your subconscious mind is a whole lot more creative than your conscious mind. On the conscious level we usually bring too much logic and order to our thinking - like cars in their neat little lanes on the highway. On the subconscious level our thoughts are flying all over the place like a demolition derby.
Plus, our subconscious mind is mega-levels more prolific than our conscious mind. Where the conscious mind only processes about 130 bits of data per second, the subconscious mind crunches billions of bits of data in the same flash of time.
Again, when you get ideas seemingly out of nowhere they aren’t really coming from thin air. It’s just your subconscious mind seeing a possible connection to the matter at hand. But as I said earlier, you can’t get a solution to a problem you are unaware of.
Asking the question early, addressing a problem well before you delve into it in earnest, can and will help you jump start the creative process, and in many cases may help you finish before you even plan to start your project that needs fresh thinking.
At a creative camp I used to conduct, an event than ran three days, on day one I would tell the group about an assignment I was going to give them on day three. Again on day two I’d remind them of the assignment. Then when we got to the final day, and I said, “Okay, let’s solve this problem,” half of the people already had a number of solutions to throw at it, some had actually finished the assignment.
The curious mind is a powerful force. All we have to do is create a void and it automatically rushed to fill it.
