We are surrounded with tools to assist us to be more creative: smart phones, IPads, netbooks, e-readers… yet the start of many an idea still comes from using low tech tools, a pen and paper. Something about the blank paper suggests an endless array of possibilities, compelling us to fill the page with something. Why not use this inclination? We’ve all experienced a time when we had a great idea, overheard something awesome or hilarious, or we came up with a great line. Maybe we had an epiphany of sorts. Then what happened? We swore we would remember but didn’t write down this fleeting bit of wisdom or humor. Later, only vague details remained or nothing at all.
Great ideas seem to come to us in the strangest and most unexpected places, don’t they?
Leonardo Da Vinci had hundreds of notebooks with his observations and sketches on everything from nature to science to jo
kes he had heard while socializing. Thomas Edison kept notebooks too. Why not carry an idea notebook to jot down something before it’s lost? Just a few keywords or a sketch can preserve the next great idea to revisit later. It is amazing how many details you will remember and incorporate into your thinking processes.
Use a notebook for work too. Have you been tasked with solving a problem? Are you managing a team? Hand out notebooks to everyone and ask them to do two things: first write down a phrase describing the project, challenge, or issue. For example, your department is attempting to come up with ideas to improve customer service. Title a page in the notebook “ideas to improve customer service”. This acts as a placeholder on the page and starts the subconscious mind noticing how things are related and can be applied across different situations. If it helps the process, pretend these observations are for reporting back to aliens with no understanding of this world.
Ask the team to make notes, doodles, scribbles for the next week as they carry the notebook with them, including work and non work-related moments. Encourage them to observe without judging or being critical of the observations—just write freely. At the end of the week, come together and share notes!
Coming on Wednesday, January 5, Creativity@Work tools.
Want more ideas to unleash Creativity@Work? For more information on how to get your copy of THE training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, visit the E-book website.
Great ideas seem to come to us in the strangest and most unexpected places, don’t they?
Leonardo Da Vinci had hundreds of notebooks with his observations and sketches on everything from nature to science to jo
kes he had heard while socializing. Thomas Edison kept notebooks too. Why not carry an idea notebook to jot down something before it’s lost? Just a few keywords or a sketch can preserve the next great idea to revisit later. It is amazing how many details you will remember and incorporate into your thinking processes.Use a notebook for work too. Have you been tasked with solving a problem? Are you managing a team? Hand out notebooks to everyone and ask them to do two things: first write down a phrase describing the project, challenge, or issue. For example, your department is attempting to come up with ideas to improve customer service. Title a page in the notebook “ideas to improve customer service”. This acts as a placeholder on the page and starts the subconscious mind noticing how things are related and can be applied across different situations. If it helps the process, pretend these observations are for reporting back to aliens with no understanding of this world.
Ask the team to make notes, doodles, scribbles for the next week as they carry the notebook with them, including work and non work-related moments. Encourage them to observe without judging or being critical of the observations—just write freely. At the end of the week, come together and share notes!
Coming on Wednesday, January 5, Creativity@Work tools.
Want more ideas to unleash Creativity@Work? For more information on how to get your copy of THE training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, visit the E-book website.
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