Creativity Coach

It’s summer and for many of us that means vacation. Taking a vacation from work can be enormously beneficial. We know that a respite from the daily routine gives your body time to relax and let go of stress. Vacation time can also give an unexpected creative boost to the projects you are working on.

How can not working be helpful to your projects? Here are two examples of putting aside one’s work only to return with renewed interest and skill.

Does your social life interfere with your creativity or does it boost your creativity?

I had ample reason to explore this issue when my social life kicked into overdrive upon returning to our summer home in Colorado. This mountain community is full of eager and active seniors who tackle everything from skiing to fund raising for the local orchestra. They are Friends of the Library, mountain trail clearers, and margarita servers at the Barbecue Challenge. At various times I have been involved in all of the above and more.

This is the second in a series of articles about the thinking skills used in creativity.

"To arrive at abstraction, it is always necessary to begin with concrete reality…You must always start with something." Picasso

This is the first in a series of articles about the thinking skills used in creativity.

"Still-in a way-nobody sees a flower-really-it is so small-we haven't the time-and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." -Georgia O'Keeffe

Remember those resolutions you made around the first of the year? Are you actively pursuing them or have they languished in the “I’ll get to it later” bin? No matter what you want to create, whatever your goal is, it requires choice and action from you. You have to do something. So, choose challenging yet achievable goals and whatever you choose, do it with enthusiasm.

This is the second of two articles on the seven practices of inventivity, based on the book by Maria and Charlie Girsh, Inventivity: Two Toy Inventors Simplify Creativity.

As human beings, we all possess the creativity gene. We exercise it every day in the choices we make: what to wear and what to eat, how we phrase our sentences, how we conduct our daily lives. These decisions become automatic and we forget that creative thinking can be intentional and it can be enhanced. In the previous article I described three everyday things that you can do to stimulate your creativity: dream dreams; try new and different things; and make mistakes. Here are the remaining four strategies and a Permission Slip to encourage you to intentionally develop your creativity.

This is the first of two articles on the seven practices of inventivity.

As human beings, we all possess the creativity gene. We exercise it every day in the choices we make: what to wear and what to eat, how we phrase our sentences, how we conduct our daily lives. These decisions become automatic and we forget that creative thinking can be intentional and it can be enhanced.

Thomas Edison had a fail-proof procedure for selecting new hires for his Menlo Park laboratories. He invited the candidate for lunch, and then carefully watched. Did the candidate reach for the salt shaker before tasting the food? If so, the interview was over and that person was not hired.