When we’re in the flow of creativity, it feels great — we feel more alive, free, young in the best way, and empowered to shape the world around us, in big and small ways. 

We want to acknowledge that we’re living in a time where we might feel our creativity (and creative work) threatened by technologies like AI, and by the heaviness of the world. 

It is in times like these that we need creativity the most.

And it’s also a time to remind ourselves that creativity is about so much more than its outcome — it is about the process, how it changes us, how we make meaning of what we discover, our connections to other people, and what we do with what is created. All of that is deeply human and meaningful. 

This week, we’re learning ways to unlock our creativity and navigate those moments where we might feel uninspired or stuck. 

Design Your World

If you feel the word “creative” doesn’t fit you well, or if you feel like it's a little airy and ungrounded in practical life matters, you might like trying out methods from the field of product design.

We’ll introduce you to a strategy called “Design Thinking”, which is the practice of creating and testing new ways to solve problems or improve upon a process.

The idea behind Design Thinking is to continually test and try out what works for us, to think big but start small.

IDEO, a design agency that popularized the concept of Design Thinking, offers a five-part framework that can help you come up with ideas to improve things right around you.

Let’s use an example challenge to walk through the framework: “How might I create a wind-down routine that gets me to bed by 10:30 pm?” 

Empathize

• Get to know everything you can about the experience of the challenge. For example, ask yourself— and get honest: “Why is it hard for me to put my device down an hour before bed?” 

• Try to remain curious and open, shelving any judgment.

Define

• Identify one problem you can tackle. For example: "How can I experience more joy or relaxation in my evenings before sleep?”

Ideate

• Brainstorm ideas: such as calling a friend, painting, or playing with a pet — more is more here, don’t hold back!

Prototype 

• Converge on a promising idea so you can try it out! For example, arrange to call a friend. 

Test 

• Try your solution out, notice how it went, and make refinements.

One thing we'd like to emphasize is that the design process is not usually so linear.

Learning takes places across all of these phases, and you might want to branch off and try something new along the way.

However you approach these design phases, we suggest that you keep trying different versions of your idea, making tweaks based on what you learn.

This is your chance to turn your life into a little experiment 😅

Creative Brainstorming Techniques

It's fun to let our minds wander and push our brains to explore possibilities.

Ideation, or the process of coming up with new ideas, is something we often do without thought, but there are techniques you can use to intentionally open up your mind to new angles or approaches.

Focusing on a diversity of ideas to start — instead of just choosing one right away — can be a helpful way to let your brain explore different possibilities before narrowing down on one option. (If you're someone who tends to come up with tons of ideas, you might save narrowing down for later on.)

There are no bad ideas at this phase — it’s about as close as we’ll come to being wildly imaginative kids again.

It’s quantity over quality here, the more divergent the better (but try to have one conversation at a time if you need help staying focused).

Brainstorming Techniques:

🧠 Mind-mapping: Write down a core issue at the center, and visually branch out to layers of greater detail. It’s like unwrapping an onion, or creating a constellation of related ideas.

𝌐  Diverge and Converge (Group Activity): First, team members work independently to produce insights and ideas; then the team comes together and votes to choose a promising idea to try.

🙋🏻‍♀️ Round Robin (Group Activity): First, participants write their idea on a piece of paper. Then, they pass it to the person next to them, who adds to the idea, and so on (bonus: try to use visuals in addition to words!)

P.S. If you don't work with a team, you could try these techniques with your family or friends!

Getting Unstuck

This happens to us all sometimes — we’re facing a problem and we just can’t seem to think of solutions or ideas; or we’re writers or other types of artists, and we just feel totally blocked. It honestly sucks. 

Here are some ideas for those very human times.

Ideas for when you’re feeling stuck:

🙆🏼‍♀️ Normalize: Recognize when you're feeling stuck, and remind yourself that’s it’s just part of the process. 

🚶🏽‍♀️ Change Your Environment: Take a walk, work from a cafe, go to a museum, or sleep on it.

🗣️ Get Support: Bounce ideas off a friend, and try to come up with as many wild ideas as possible.

🧩💪🏻 Develop Your Creative Muscle (preventative/ongoing): Write morning pages, or bring a little notebook to jot down new connections you’re making throughout the day.

🤨 Ask Empowering Questions: For example, what do I need to help this move forward? What would it look like if this were easy/simple/fun? What worked the last time I felt this way? 

⏰ Set a timer and make... anything.

🎴 Check out musician Brian Eno’s (rad) Oblique Strategies deck: https://ob-strat.netlify.app/

It's Time to Play

National Institute of Play Founder Dr. Stuart Brown defines pure play as “a joyful activity performed for its own sake.” His research shows that play increases humans’ levels of trust, mutual attunement, empathy, adaptability, creativity, and more — all vitally important, especially in chaotic times.  

Unfortunately, play can be elusive, especially for adults who have limited time, and might consider play a luxury, or childish.

To grow your play habit, researchers suggest scheduling play into your day — it sounds silly, but it’s often necessary for “responsible” adults to carve out intentional time to play. We hope you try it and let us know how it goes!

And for a final play boost, you can learn more about your "play style" here — it might unlock new ways of being playful that you hadn't thought of!

Ways To Add More Play in Your Day

📆 Plan Your Play: Block a few gaps in your day when you commit to doing something random and playful.

🐈 👧🏽 Learn from animals and children playing, and join in where you can :)

🏋🏽‍♀️ Weave “Serious Play” into work activities: For example, visual brainstorming, playful competition, or work-aligned play.

✧˖°. ⋆｡˚:✧｡

We hope this week's theme brought you some new ways to think about your creative process!

P.S. If you could use help accomplishing your goals this season while still remembering to rest, please join us at one of our live guided work sessions, or morning planning sessions!

Take care,

— Anna, focused space host