Stretch Your Creativity

In this post, the Autumn Creek Apartments Blog is featuring a few ways to stretch and express your creativity this month. We hope that these tips help you find new ways to be creative — whether you are creative in business, writing, painting, etc. — and express the new and innovative ideas you have.

Make time for creative thinking

Top Universities suggest that one way to unlock creativity is to set aside some time each day for creative thinking. The author says, “Every textbook on creativity affirms to the importance of setting aside clearly defined time for creative thinking or new projects. But often, even if we show up ready to innovate, still something doesn’t work and fresh ideas fail to pop up like popcorn. There are two reasons for this stalemate. The first is that we don’t practice dreaming, and the second is we don’t practice focusing on cohesive ideas.”

Set aside time this month to think about your creative ideas before you create. Spend an hour or two thinking constructively about your project. What is it you want to achieve or create? What problems do you anticipate popping up as you work? How will you confront these problems? Go over your idea in your head, write down plans and lists, and then work.

Build off of other people’s ideas

In his TED Talk, Embrace the Remix, Kirby Ferguson argued that nothing is new; everything is recycled from the past. Ferguson says, “Our creativity comes from without, not from within. We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another, and admitting this to ourselves isn't an embrace of mediocrity and derivativeness. It's a liberation from our misconceptions, and it's an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves and to simply begin.”

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself; just keep plugging away. It’s more important to keep working, thinking, and creating than it is to be completely original every time we sit down to create something. Click the link to read Kirby Ferguson’s talk and to learn more about how Bob Dylan borrowed from the folk singers that came before him.

Try something new

Sometimes stepping outside of your usual routine is the easiest (and best) way to express and expand your creativity. Take a cooking class in East Amherst or another WNY location, try your hand at painting, or write your first short story or a poem. Do something you’ve never considered doing before. Read a book on a topic you know very little about. Inspiration can come from everywhere and anywhere.

Summertime is a good time to be creative. Do you have any creativity tips for us? Let us know in the comments.