Six essential systems to maximise creativity
Are you tired of waiting for creative inspiration? Then it's time for a new approach. These six systems will help you to be consistently creative and develop more innovative approaches to problem-solving.
Creatives aren’t all born talented. They have developed processes to help them be creative. Because creativity is a learnable skill, we can break it down into steps. By implementing creativity systematically, you can:
Generate more ideas, consistently.
Overcome creative blocks.
Connect diverse concepts to produce more novel ideas
Uncover deeper insights that prompt impactful solutions.
Here are the six systems that you can implement right now to improve your creativity:
System 1. Cultivate a creative mindset
Create the right environment for ideas to flourish by prioritising possibilities over perfection. Creativity isn’t about finding the perfect solution quickly. Next time you hit a creative block, don’t rush. Give yourself permission to explore, make mistakes and stay in the process longer than feels comfortable. Getting comfortable with the messiness of creativity is the only way for us to do the type of thinking that leads to creative insights.
System 2. Deliberate observation and narrative creation
Look beyond what’s on the surface and try to understand the context and emotions behind what’s happening. Watch what people do, not just what they say they do. It’s the nuanced context, emotions and cultural factors that shape human behaviour. All creative processes start with gathering relevant information before new ideas can be generated. Without it, businesses are making decisions based on only half the picture.
But we need to do more than just explain human experiences, we need to describe them. Narratives are a powerful tool for doing this. Stories make information more engaging, memorable and relatable. When we understand the story behind the data, we can unlock insights that help us to solve problems better.
System 3. Knowledge expansion by thinking wider
The most creative minds are curious. They enjoy exploration and connecting ideas across disciplines. By expanding your knowledge and learning new skills, you can provide your brain with more ‘dots’ to connect and the more dots the brain has available, the more creative it can be. The most powerful ideas don’t come from thinking more deeply. They come from thinking wider.
We can prompt ourselves to think wider by asking “What stands out and why?”, “What thoughts does it spark?” “Where could it lead?”.
System 4. Idea capture, building a library of possibilities
Batch idea generation (like peeling all the potatoes before cooking) so that you’re not tempted to overinvest in just one idea. And by batching your creativity, you will have multiple alternatives to draw on if one doesn’t work.
Keep a notebook or app for all ideas, good or bad. By building your own library of ideas, you'll have a richer base to draw from. Revisit old ideas regularly – you never know when one might find a new use.
System 5. Reflect and incubate by making space for subconscious processing
Leave time for reflection. The most creative minds understood the need to step back. But it’s not just relaxing your brain that improves creativity, it’s the ability to relax the part that’s responsible for logic. This frees up the other part of your brain to daydream, problem solve, and do big-picture thinking and that’s when you begin to imagine what could be. Plan mental downtime. These relaxing "bed, bath, bus" moments let your mind wander.
System 6. Act and iterate to bring ideas to life
Generating creative ideas is just the start. The true challenge lies in the difficult process of bringing them to life and navigating the complexities of the real world.
Prioritise: Select the most promising ideas from your pool. Run a small number in parallel until you have tested them and gathered feedback to avoid losing momentum if one doesn’t work.
Prototype: Create basic versions, prototypes or experiments to test the validity of the leading ideas.
Test and gather feedback: Share your prototypes with customers to see how they land in the real world and observe how customers react as well as gathering their feedback.
Iterate: Refine your ideas or shelve unsuccessful ones based on this feedback. Creativity involves lots of false starts and continuous improvement. By having more than one idea in play, you can avoid having to start completely from scratch.
Persist: Ideas require effort and iteration to become a reality. Most companies underestimate how long this will take. Make sure that there are sufficient resources available to cover the worst-case scenario so that your project doesn’t run out of road.
By consistently applying these systems, creativity will become an integral part of your problem-solving toolkit.