Creativity

Concept of creativity

Creativity is difficult for a lot of people to quantify, it's a broad term, but an important skill.

Creativity and expertise is what makes the difference between an amateur and a professional.

Creativity is usually a personal talent. And the good news is: anyone can learn to be more creative in their work and life.

How is it possible to stimulate your creative mind? Well, there are different techniques, but the most important aspect is observation.

 

Creative people see the world differently than others. they are efficient observers.

Where do I Start?

Before we actually begin with studying process, block and techniques, we first need to start with your own creativity. Looking at how others do things is easy, the challenge is pushing yourself to be more creative in your own work and life. This is something very individual. There's no golden rule which will improve your creativity.

To get started, there are just two simple rules:

1. Everything is possible

2. Everything is allowed

creativity important in business?

Creativity and innovation within well run companies have always been recognized as a sure path to success. Stimulating creativity and exploring completely new and unknown before territories lead as result to increasing the productivity of the organization

Stages of creativity process

1.Preparation

The first stage is the idea of Preparation, the idea that you are immersing yourself in the domain. If you are a musician you are absorbing all the music that is inspiring you to create this new piece. If you're a writer you are reading other writers in this area. If you are an artist you are looking at other artist's work in the area that you are looking at creating something in. If you are a scientist you are looking at all the background research. And if you are an entrepreneur or marketer you are looking at all the previous market research and what other companies have done before.

So this stage is normally best carried out in a quiet environment. It's really this stage that you are trying to absorb as much information us possible because this information will go into your sub consciousness where it is very important for the second stage, or second level. Incubation

2.Incubation

The second stage is what we call the Incubation stage. In incubation this is when all the information that you have gathered in the PREPARATION stage really goes back. It starts to churn in the back of your mind, in the sub-consciousness. This is an extremely important stage because sometimes it can takes days, or weeks, or months or sometimes even years. 

That idea that you'll think about writing about a book or piece of music, and you're writing about it and you just leave it to the side for a while and then you come back to it. Now the interesting thing about the incubation stages it that to a certain extent it is not really under your control how long that stage will take. It is something you cannot really rush because what it leads to is the third stage. Insight

3.Insight

The third stage is what most of the public think is a classic signal or sign of a creative person, what is called the Insight stage or the insight step. With insight it is really the idea of the 'Aha' moment, the Eureka moment.

A quick thing I would say here is that they most often happen when you are doing some kind of low-level physical activity; going for a shower, driving a car, having a walk. This is because your sub consciousness in the previous stages is bubbling away and this insight stage really allows the mind to work on something else. And then bring these ideas to the forefront of your mind. So that's the third stage, the insight's stage. And now we go Evaluation

4.Evaluation

The fourth stage is this idea of Evaluation. This is something I have problem with. I think it is an area that a lot of creative people struggle with because often you have so many ideas and you have a limited amount of time. So the evaluation stage is important because this is where it requires self criticism and reflection.

It is very important part because we only have a limited amount of time to do certain things. Often you find that people who are called the most 'creative people are often very good at this evaluation stage. They have all these ideas but they can use self criticism and reflection to say "these are the ones that have the most merit and that I'm going to work on.

5.Elaboration

And then we have the final stage. This is called Elaboration. This is where Edison said that it's "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". Now the elaboration stage in the 99% perspiration stage. This is where you are actually doing the work. 

The elaboration is like testing the idea, working on the idea, those late nights in the studio, working at your desk, those hours in the laboratory if you are scientist, those days testing and micro testing products.

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