I guess some people are naturally creative and some are not, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t all improve our creativity. So here is a list of some of the best ways to improve your creativity:

Creativity comes out of new combinations. It’s very rare to produce something which is completely new in every respect. Creativity is much more commonly the result of bringing together two or more existing ideas and combining them in a new way.

Creativity comes out of perspiration. If you want to have new ideas then it’s important to keep working at them. Inspiration comes to those who are actively engaged in a problem, not to those who are just sitting back waiting for the big idea to come to them.

Creativity comes out of knowledge and experience. This is closely related to the previous two. The person who will have the most creative ideas about a subject is the person who knows it back to front.

Creativity comes out of questioning. There is a danger that people who know a subject well become wedded to “the way it’s always been done”. This is not a bad thing when that way is built on years of knowledge and experience. But the person who can bring a “new mind” to the subject will frequently see things which the old hands can’t see because they are blinded by familiarity.

Creativity comes out of restrictions. It’s much easier to be creative when the terms and boundaries have been defined closely. The closer you define the question the more likely you are to be able to answer it.

Creativity comes out of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with the way things are at present is one of the keys to creativity. But beware - this dissatisfaction can express itself in destructive ways instead of creative ways.

Creativity comes out of changing one thing. Often the key to creativity is to list the various factors involved and experiment with doing just one thing different.

Have you got any ideas to add to this list?

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