Creativity

from my Interior Design days at MSU

(from "Old Collection")

Rules of Thumb for Creativity

adapted from What a Great Idea! by Charles Thompson

1.  The best way to get great ideas is to GET LOTS OF IDEAS an throw the bad ones away.

2.  Create ideas that are 15 MINUTES AHEAD OF THEIR TIME, not light years.  ~Woody Allen

3.  Always look for a SECOND RIGHT ANSWER. (Never fall in love with an idea!)

4.  If at first you don't succeed, TAKE A BREAK.

5.  WRITE DOWN YOUR IDEAS before you forget them. (Writing down ideas is like putting money in 

      the bank).

6.  If everyone says you're wrong, YOU'RE ONE STEP AHEAD. (If everyone laughs, YOU'RE TWO 

     STEPS AHEAD).

7.  The answer to any problem "pre-exists". We need to ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION to reveal the

     answer. ~Jonas Salk

8.  When you ASK A DUMB QUESTION, you get a smart answer.  ~Aristotle

9.  Never solve a problem FROM ITS ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE.

10. VISUALIZE YOUR PROBLEM AS SOLVED before solving it.

11.  All behavior consists of opposites...LEARN TO SEE THINGS BACKWARD, INSIDE OUT

      AND UPSIDE DOWN.  ~Las-tze, TAO-TE-CHING

12.  CHALLENGING AN ASSUMPTION can turn obstacles into opportunities.

13.  If different shoes don't work, TRY LOOKING AT YOUR PROBLEM FROM A HELICOPTER...

       OR A SPACESHIP.

14.  THINK LIKE NATURE. Ask, "How would nature solve this problem?"  ~Jonas Salk

15.  STUDY THE BEST, then adapt.  ~Tom Peters

16.  ASK FOR HELP. Let me repeat, ASK FOR HELP.

17.  BE OPEN TO FAILURE (See "A" below).

18.  Often it's the INTERESTING PART of an idea--not the positive or negative--that leads to

       invention.

19.  Establish a CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT. (See "B" below).

20.  MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR SHOWER. If inspired to sing, maybe the song has an idea in it

       for you.  ~Albert Einstein

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A.  On Failure:

      1.  "Successful people generally have more errors to their credit, and often bigger ones, than 

           unsuccessful people. They view these in the same way that scientists view failed experiments:

           not as moral set-backs but as the necessary concomitants of discovery."

      2.  Total readiness to suppress inferior work is one of the keys to effective production...Scrapping

           our own failures implies a psychological strength that is essential to successful innovation:

           it is a declaration of independence...It also asserts a trust in the future, a confidence in the 

           renewal of one's strength." 

                                                        ~Robert Grudin, The Grace of Great Things, p. 94

B.  Our homes are parceled out into service spaces (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom) and social areas...

      with little or no space set aside for productive initiatives of private contemplation. Creative

      activity demands the opposite...    

                                                        ~IBID, p.83

C.   General thoughts on the subject of creativity:

       The creative process must be explored...as representing the highest degree of emotional health, as 

       the expression of...people in the act of actualizing themselves...Creativity...is basically the process

       of making or bringing into being.      ~Rollo May, in Courage to Create, p. 38

  

       New ideas capture and possess the mind that births them; they colonize it and renew its laws. The

       expansion of any idea is thus also an expansion of self...Creativity is a classic example of human 

       freedom.  ~Grudin, Grace, pp. 6-7

      A career of achievement can depend on the unflinching acknowledgement of a few simple facts. The

      simplest, the one most central to creativity, is that we are personally responsible for most of the 

      major events in our lives and for all our responses to these events.  ~IBID

      "Miracles come after a lot of hard work."  ~Sue Bender, Plain and Simiple

      "HE WAS HIS OWN BEST DESIGN"  (said of George Nelson)