Thoughts on how to stay creative

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The following blog post is about creativity, one of the most important topics in my life. In die blog post you will learn about how I constantly challenge my creativity, how I always maintain it and what procedure I have for staying creative.

So let's get straight into it!

In my opinion, every person is creative, or at least was once creative. When you think back to your childhood, you discover yourself in a world full of fantasy games. I had a thriving imagination as a child, which was especially reflected in school, in German lessons when we had to write fictitious stories. Many people lose their creativity or knowledge in the time they grow up, or do not know how to properly nurture and maintain their creativity. I try to challenge my creativity every day to get better and to acquire new skills. As a designer I stumble every day through various postings on Instagram with the hashtags "dailyposter", "dailyui" or "dailywebdesign". This is a wonderful way to sit down daily for, say, 30 minutes and face this creative challenge. And clearly the point of the matter is that you really get it through, so throw away thoughts which slows you down. When I think about not being creative enough to create something creative every day, it's clear that I'm not going to achieve my goals. Creativity sits in the head, that's where it comes from, and there it is combated by such bad thoughts.

What about Non-Designers?

What I stated above, does not mean that you can only promote your creativity with daily poster challenges or something like that. The key is to sit down for a certain amount of time and intensively deal with one of your passions. Whether it's reading, writing, drawing, sports, cooking, or whatever. Creative moments lurk everywhere and can arise at any time.

Think about which areas interest you particularly? Where do I want to learn something else? Where do I want to improve? Once you have discovered the right topic or the right area for you, the main thing is to work out a plan. When do I start with my personal creativity-promotion or challenge, how much time should it take each day, over what period of time does it take place, and so on. If the plan is up, you can start.

Self-discipline is the key to success

Of course, self-discipline is also needed to develop. The process of promoting creativity does not work if, after one day, I say "I'm not interested anymore, I'm not into it". You have to be able to hide that and really dig into your project. These ways of thinking can not only be applied in the design process, but can equally well transferred to other areas. After all, creativity is nothing other than solution-oriented thinking and acting, and it is often very beneficial to not deal directly with the solution, but perhaps rather with the problem.

Creativity means choosing and observing a different perspective, for creative people the world is a huge playground, full of inspirations and creative moments that arise spontaneously. Because such creative moments often arise spontaneously, I can only recommend to anyone, to carry a small notebook and a pen always and everywhere. Why? For taking notes in such creative moments. Most of you are definitely thinking right now "Hey, I also have my super-great smartphone with a great note-taking app, so I can also write stuff down there". It may be so, but analogue notes with pen and paper are simply the better choice for this purpose, as writing with pen on paper is already a creative process. The thing about the little notebook is simply that if you have a creative idea, just write it down, even if it's so banal or extraordinary or whatever, just write down everything so you can recognize your creative moments and responds to it. At some point you pick up the notebook, and then perhaps a banal idea that you have grasped in a creative moment brings you to a whole new idea that you may actually be able to put into practice.

Freewriting, by the way, is an excellent method for promoting creativity, and works only with pen and paper. If you're wondering what Freewriting is: you need pen and paper, as we already know, then sit down, set a timer for 15 minutes and just start writing. No matter what, you just write 15 minutes without the pen leaving the paper. But do not criticize yourself somehow or say "I can not do that", just write for 15 minutes, no matter what comes out.

Allow mental barriers

If that is not the case and you have a complete mental barrier, then let it go. It does not make any sense to fight against it, if nothing works then that's the way it is, try to get your mind off things and do something completely different from what you've been working on. Creativity can not be called up at the touch of a button, you can not make appointments for good, creative ideas.

To summarize, creativity is definitely something that can be learned but it also needs to be fostered. Staying creative is hard, and there will be a load of mental barriers. But do not fight against them and do not try to force yourself into creative ideas. Take some time off to clear your mind and start over again.

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