Everyone who works creatively, has probably experienced a creative block sometime. Sometimes it lasts only a moment, before you get into the work at hand, other times it may seem as it is there to stay indefinitely. What can we do to get over them? These are my tips:
*Realize that the block is in your head only.
*Ask yourself: What do I want to accomplish? What is this task about? Why? Very often there are more than one right answer, try to see the task from another perspective.
*Keep a notebook with you everywhere you go. (I know, this is old news, but it actually works! It wasn’t until I started carrying a notebook in my purse that I discovered how many ideas I actually get. Pre-notebook, I forgot 99% of them.)
*Write down every idea that comes to you, and do the weeding and editing later. A lot of what you write down may not be useful in the project at hand, but some of it might come in handy in the future, or connect to other ideas on other projects.
*Don’t be afraid to be wrong. If something doesn’t work out, consider it a learning experience and move on. Remember what Thomas Edison said when he invented the lightbulb: “I didn’t fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated, ten thousand times, materials and combinations which wouldn’t work.”
*Get out of your natural habitat. Go someplace you don’t usually go, do something that you don’t usually do. A new environment and new experiences can do wonders for creative thinking.
“The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things—ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later, or six months, or six years. But he has faith that it will happen.” Tony Clark
