SEVEN METHODS FOR BEING CREATIVE

Do you want to solve a problem or do you try to find new ideas? These methods can help you.

One day, a writer was sitting on his chair. He was drinking coffee. Suddenly, he found the words for his novel. Finally, his muses came for the ideas. 

Maybe, this story is so familiar to you. Because writers and poets write like that in movies and tales. But I am not sure that it is easy like that. Sometimes writers say in interviews that they work on one page for one day. Of course, suddenly ideas can come to your head. But in my opinion, if writing, and finding ideas is your job, you cannot wait for the muses. 

Let’s think about some websites, tools or machines. Before being put on the market, most of the products are experienced by users. User Experience (UX) Designers do a lot of research and try to find new and useful products. They can do field research, and do surveys on the users. After creating prototypes, they can do user research again. This process can sometimes be long. Because you can always find new ideas and falses after research and you can fix them thanks to feedback. 

You can see that UX Designers cannot wait for the muses. But they can use some methods and try to find new and useful ideas.

In this article, I will write about tools for creating ideas. Maybe you have heard some of them, maybe not. I like the “Creating Minds” website for it. There are a lot of tools on the website and they explained all of the tools in detail. 

SIX THINKING HATS

This tool looks like a game. In this tool, six people will have different roles and everybody has different colours and headlines. White is information. This character should ask for all of the information about the idea. Black is judgement. This character always says why this idea will not work. Green is creativity. This character offers opportunities and solutions. Red is intuition. It talks about its feelings and hunches. Yellow is optimism. This character is positive and enthusiastic. Blue is “thinking”. This character talks logically. If you use this tool as a group, it will be better but if you want, you can do it individually. Owing to this tool, you can find different ideas from different sides and you can criticize the idea. 

TALK STREAMING

You should talk long with this tool. You can find a person or talk to yourself. You should talk without interruption and say everything in your head until you are tired. To say something out loud can work.

WRITE STREAMING

This tool is like “talk streaming” but you should write instead of talk in this tool. You can go to a place where you can feel comfortable, get paper and pens and start to write. Whatever you think, you can write. It can be logical or not. You should just write until you are tired. 

ABSENCE THINKING

When we try to find ideas, we focus on our ideas and work on them. In this tool, we should focus on the opposite and ask ourselves “what do I not think”, and “What is missing in this idea, in the picture?” You can adapt everything to these questions. 

RANDOM WORDS

You can write everything whatever you think. You can write every word, they don’t have to be logical words. Don’t forget that, you can ignore it at the end of the process but when you use this tool, you can write everything. Look around, get help from books, magazines, etc. Everything can bring words to you.

MIND-MAPPING

Maybe you heard of this tool. Mind-mapping is one of the most popular tools. You can select one topic and you can start to write words related to this topic. You can separate related words. For example, you want to create a workshop and make a plan. You can think about when and where you will do the workshop. Will there be a workshop about what? Who can attend this workshop? Who can do what? You can increase the questions. Important thing is to select a topic and separate titles. Your ideas will be more clear. Also, you can draw something, and use post-it and colourful pens. It can help to be more creative. If you want also you can use online tools. Miro is a good website for it. You can send invitations to people and create mind-maps with your team online. Miro is not just for mind-mapping. Also, you can create presentations, personas, diagrams, storyboards, etc. You can use it for free. 

BRAINSTORMING

Also brainstorming is one of the most popular tools. This tool is a teamwork tool. In this tool, you should choose a problem and everybody should try to find a solution for the problem. There are some rules in this tool. You shouldn’t criticise other people’s ideas and you shouldn’t think that your idea is “silly”. Every idea is important because your teammate can remember different ideas thanks to your ideas or you can find different ideas owing to your teammate’s ideas. You shouldn’t think a lot. Whatever you think, you can write. Also, you can draw, and use post-it.

* I used the creatingminds.org website when I wrote this article. You can find more ideation tools on this website.

Author: Evin Arslan