The use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.
It’s really easy to just think of creativity in terms of art and music, but it is far more than that. And actually features in virtually everything we do. It can just mean a new way of thinking about or doing something.
The British psychologist, Graham Wallas, developed a four step process to help stimulate the creative juices. This process is based on Wallas’s research into how innovators and thought leaders come up with new ideas. He laid out the four stages in his 1926 book “Art of Thought”:
We’ll go through each stage below with some top tips for how best to use the process to help flex your creative muscles.
If you’re a more visual person you can watch our webinar here instead. It includes a whole host of free tools that can help you work those creative muscles.
An often overlooked stage of the process is preparing yourself to come up with great ideas. This can mean exercising your brain and looking for inspiration. What are other people, for instance your competitors doing? Is there anything you can learn from them? What’s topical and popular at the moment, can these themes be used as a jumping off point?
It can be extremely overwhelming to face a blank sheet and just expect yourself to come up with the most ingenious idea. Fortunately, there are several exercises you can do to help alleviate this. For instance, try coming up with all the wrong answers to a question, or 10 impossible solutions, this will help you tap into the childlike part of your brain that has fewer constraints.
Try setting a timer and focus on quantity over quality. This can free your mind to go to new places. If you just allow yourself to churn out a tonne of ideas without overthinking each one, you might surprise yourself about where your mind goes. And don’t worry you can sift the wheat from the chaff in the next stages of the process.
In this stage of the process you give yourself space to ruminate on the ideas sparked in your earlier brainstorm. It’s wise to take your time with this stage, and carve out space to think and mull over an idea. Changing your environment can be extremely helpful here too.
Going for a walk can allow something lurking at the back of your mind to come to the forefront. Stanford University actually proved this phenomenon; creative output and thinking increases on average 60% when people are out and about or walking.
Focusing on a menial task, like the washing up, can have a similar effect and allow your mind to wander. As Einstein put it “while the conscious mind wanders, the unconscious mind engages in combinatory play”. Essentially, when you’re not consciously focused on something your unconscious mind can connect the dots in unexpected and brilliant ways.
Now it’s time to transform your fledgling idea into a more rounded concept. Try and throw off the subconscious rules that we apply and inhibit our creativity. If you find yourself thinking but that won’t work, push back against yourself and question why it is you think that. Is there another way to make it work?
Children are amazing at this, they don’t apply the same rules and limits to solving a problem that adults do. Watch this example below from a TED Talk by Balder Onarheim on how children aren’t limited in the same way adults are:
Try to think about your idea from a new angle or lens, this will help you spot potential flaws or new and better routes you can use to develop it.
Your creative idea is feeling pretty solid by now. It’s time for it to spread its wings and be seen by a wider audience. To verify your idea it’s always sensible to start with a trusted friend or colleague. Next you’ll need buy-in from other stakeholders, and depending on the context you may want to user test it with customers.
A great way to verify an idea is to create a quick concept video and circulate that for feedback. VideoScribe is the perfect way to create an animated video in minutes, you don’t need any video editing or design skills. Give it a try for free.