Stay creative

Many of my colleagues sometimes experience creative block, often due to the fact that they have to make money out of their creativity, and that is something that I also can relate to.

There are lots of articles written about it, and this is one, that I think is quite down to earth, containing some useful exercises.

http://lifehacker.com/5940145/why-creativity-blocks-happen-and-how-to-overcome-them

A powerful tactic to overcome this (creative block: my remark) is taking a project and breaking it down into smaller pieces. Once you stop looking at your project as a whole, things don't look as obvious as they were before. Write down a list of all the elements in your current project—presentation topics, blog post paragraphs, web site elements, and more. Then focus on one part at a time and change just that one. The most interesting thing about this tactic is that just dividing a project into a discrete list of elements will help ideas to start flowing. Once you have your list you can do wonders with it. Here are a few quick examples:

Focusing on one part and changing it completely.

Removing a part.

Combining random parts.

.....and further, it sais.....

When your creativity needs to play the main role, it's no longer about having the ‘right' answer, but about providing a set of different answers to the same question. When you're facing a difficult problem—try to create a number of different answers. This will help you solve it more quickly, and in a more creative way. Before you start a project or a part of it, draft 5-6 different alternatives. It might be 6 different ways to pitch the same idea, or 6 different design themes for a website. I make sure to prepare a list of all the alternatives before starting so I won't get fixated.