Maybe your business is slow, or your relationship is troubled, or you are looking for an idea for a new class or project. Get creative!
I love new ways of thinking outside the box, especially when I have a problem. Michael Michalko has been a resource for creative problem solving for many years. I have his Thinkpak, a card deck of illustrated idea stimulating cards that help you view challenges in a new light, and I get updates from his website regularly.
If you are having trouble coming up with new ideas, or you are needing a new perspective on some problem or endeavor that needs fresh thinking, try one of these 22 suggestions. They come from Michalko’s website, www.creativethinking.net
1. Take a walk and look for something interesting. Force a connection between it and your problem. E.g., you see a jar of honey in a shop’s window. What connections can you make between the honey and your problem?
2. Open a dictionary, close your eyes, and randomly point to a word. Use the word in a sentence. Can you make any associations between the word or sentence and your problem.
3. How is an iceberg like an idea that might help you solve your problem? 4. Create an idea that is so dumb it will get you fired. Examine the dumb idea. Is there anything in the idea you can build on?
5. Ask a child.
6. Create a prayer asking for help with your problem.
7. What does the sky taste like?
8. What or who can you copy?
9. Read a different newspaper every day for a week. E.g., the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the NY Times, the NY Post, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and your hometown newspaper (e.g., Elmira Star Gazette).
10. List all the things that bug or bother you about the problem.
11. Doodle while thinking about the problem.
12. If you were the problem’s psychotherapist, what would the problem confide to you?
13. Take a bath instead of a shower.
14. What is the most bizarre idea you can come up with? Can you engineer the bizarre idea into something practical?
15. What can you adapt to help you solve the problem? What else is like your problem?
16. Take a different route to work every day for five days.
17. Write the problem on a slip of paper. Place it on your bed stand. Forget it. Go to sleep. When you wake, immediately write down everything and anything that comes to mind. Can you make any connections or associations with your problem?
18. Listen to a different radio station each day. FM. AM. NPR. Liberal talk show. Conservative talk show.
19. Ask the most creative person you know.
20. Compare your problem with electricity. What are the similarities? Differences? What are the parallels between the processes of electricity and problem solving?
21. What is it about the problem that you don’t yet understand?
22. Write down your problem in one sentence. Reduce it to one word. What other word might be used? Look for synonyms in a thesaurus. Choose one. What is the dictionary definition of the synonym? Does it give you a new way to look at the problem?
Congratulations, Rue, on an artfully created, useful, fun blog!! May it web us together in Light. Love and Blessings, Suzan
Rue, I have just now read your blog post and really like the out of the box ideas that you presented on how we can more creatively look at a problem. As always, you introduce me to new perceptions and ideas. Thank you, Martha
Thank you Suzan! What a beautiful expression you used: May it web us together in Light
Oh Martha, I so appreciate that you are letting me know that what I am writing is useful! I want to include more about creative problem solving here. It is my favorite… :^)
Dear Rue,
Thank you for the beautiful vessel that you are. A vessel which has been fashioned through your love… now your vessel, so opened up and fashioned to receive the light of help from the visible and the invisible realms, is filled and filled again, that you may share with us! May we form our vessels too and receive and pass the refreshment on… Today my thirst has been relieved by sipping from my cup your vessel so generously filled. love, Katherine
My goodness, Katherine. All I can say is thank you! Each of us is a vessel of blessings for the world and each other. Yes! Pass it on!
Dear Rue,
My comment came under the problem solving article but the words came from my experience of your work and being as a whole… in gratitude, K
Hi rue-
nice to see you in this new venue. I recently had an insight that ties into this theme of creativity. I was stuck (for the umpteenth time) in not being able to figure out a solution to an ongoing problem in my life. Frozen in feeling I had to come up with the “correct” solution and having no idea what it was. These beliefs were leading to a lot of panic. I suddenly realized (reframed) that I don’t have to come up with the (magical/mysterious) answer; I just need to find a different way of looking at the problem. Very liberating. And unblocked the freeze…
Oh Georgina, this is perfect! I have had so many moments like that. That is why I loved this list. Michael Michalko is an excellent resource for different ways of looking at things. One of his websites: http://www.creativitypost.com