Not Only Luck.
An essay by John Melonakos

Fostering Creativity

My friend Todd Sierer shared a wonderful video on Facebook from John Cleese about Creativity (see link below). The 13 minute video lists 5 requirements for achieving creativity:

  1. Space
    • Need to create an oasis for thinking where you will not be bothered.
  2. Time
    • Need time to yourself to think. 90 minutes is perfect. First 30 minutes will be a struggle to flush out thoughts from the rest of your life. 60 minutes will be for creative thinking. Anything longer than 90 minutes is too long because you’ll need a break. You need an exact start and stop time in which you isolate yourself from the rest of the world for creative thinking.
  3. Time
    • Need to be willing to tolerate the anxiety that comes from not having solved the problem. Push along for more time to find something original rather than settling for the first and easiest solution. Give your mind as long as possible to come up with something original.
  4. Confidence
    • Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. You have to risk saying things that are silly, illogical, or wrong.
  5. A 22″ Waist (aka Humor)
    • Humor gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.

Favorite Quote

“It is easier to do trivial things that are urgent than to do important things that are not urgent. It is easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things we’re not so sure about.”

Great Examples of Creativity

I have two friends (both engineers) that are particularly creatively wonderful on YouTube. One is Todd, with his An Engineering Mind channel. The other is Mark Rober with his One Meeelion Dollars channel. Both are awesome!

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What are your thoughts on creative thinking? How do you set yourself up to be creative?

 

 

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