Ideas

Creativity Toolkit

Design your ideal workspace with:

• Scents
• Perfect temperature
• Add optimal lighting
• Colors to soothe or inspire
• Ergonomic workstation and encouraging quotes or pictures
• Sound: background music (try getworkdonemusic.com), or silence

Use your peak energy time for thinking creatively

Switch on your imagination and brainstorm ideas.

Learn with books and TED talks about creativity at Engaging Creativity.

SCAMPER (also at humanskills) based on questions in Alex Osborn’s 1953 book Applied Imagination

• Substitute: What can be replaced? Different components, materials, people. Example: Swiffer cleaner with disposable pads.
• Combine: What can be combined, merged, or put together? How to include other features, devices? Example: ruler with built-in calculator.
• Adapt: What is similar, other ideas this suggests? How to improve, make better, more frequent etc. Change or include new elements or functions. Examples: Velcro came from how burrs stick to dog fur, Frisbees were originally pie plates.
• Modify/magnify: What can be modified? What can be re-used in a novel way? What can be added? How to make bigger, taller, longer? Change the size, shape, color or other attribute. Example: Keurig coffeemaker pods, big stuff Oreos, a million dollar blanket.
• Put to other use/substitute: New ways to use, or use another place? Example: shipping containers converted into homes, file folders made of plastic.
• Eliminate/minify: What can be removed or simplified? What can be smaller? Example: Dyson bagless vacuum, mini poptarts.
• Rearrange/reverse: What can be swapped, switched, or flipped? Change parts, process, layout, order, sequence. Example: roll-on deoderant inspired by ball point pen, a reversible jacket.

Unrestrained: What if this could be easy? How can it be expanded? Listen to the reasons why you can’t do it your mind comes up with, and look for the accuracy of underlying beliefs. Beyond Belief by Nir Eyal.

Constrained: What if this was reduced or contracted? If you only had limited time, what would you do? The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, TED talk The paradox of choice.

• The Design Kit from IDEO – design thinking is an approach to planning or problem solving with five steps: understand, observe, visualize, evaluate and refine, and implement.
• See more creative tools at creatingminds.org
• The Future Belongs to the Curious video from Skillshare
• Generate Ideas with the Deck of Brilliance

Get Creative with 101 Ways to Brew up a Great Idea

Try 32 Creative Arts

Capture ideas | Evaluate Ideas | Dial it Up, Dial it Down

• Business Idea Outline and Change Outline at the Change Toolkit
• Project Evaluation Form at Evaluating Ideas & Projects
• Creativity Pinterest Board | Storytelling Pinterest Board
• Idea Generator at the Daily PlanIt Sticky Wiki