{1} Share Your Work
If you don't know where to start, it's here. Whatever
creative projects you want to undertake, start by sharing your work and pointing yourself in the direction of others who share your interests,
says Austin Kleon, 2014's SXSW keynote speaker and author of Show Your
Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered. It can be small,
it can be incremental—just get it out there.
"The technology is really important, and we all have
tools that turn us into media producers now," says Kleon. "But what's
more important is attitude and spirit, that attitude of jumping into the world
you want to join and making your own thing."
{2} Take a Road Trip
Earlier this year, a group of Pinterest employees pitched
their bosses the idea of taking Pinterest on the road, largely to promote a new
location-based Pinterest feature called Place Pins. Their boss responded with a
simple image: a classic Winnebago, only with the Pinterest logo where the
iconic "W" would be. They called it the "Pinnebago," a name
that stuck. And while the trip was a great marketing move, it also unlocked new ideas within the team.
{3} Create a Surprise
Journal
Julia Galef,
president of the Center for Applied Rationality, runs courses for individuals
and companies like Facebook and the Thiel Foundation about the science of
decision-making, so it makes sense that she is keen to understand her own
personal thoughts. Her technique? The Surprise Journal. She keeps this journal with her at all
times, writing down when something surprises her and why.
For example, she noticed she was surprised that both older
and younger people were attending her workshops, because she assumed people
would self-segregate by age. She was surprised that her students would mention
a concept from one of her colleague’s classes, because she didn’t expect that
idea to be very memorable. "I started thinking about surprise as a cue
that my expectations were wrong," she says. Once you start to understand
your own faulty assumptions, it creates a space to generate new ideas that
address things as they actually are.
{4} Get a Weird Side Gig
For the past seven years, editor and designer Brian McMullen
had a dream creative job as the senior art director and one of the senior
editors at literary and humor publisher McSweeney's. He founded and
ran the company's award-winning kids' book department, McSweeney's McMullens,
helped to launch food magazine Lucky Peach, and oversaw much of the
creative direction of a brand known for its unique and dynamic visuals. And in his spare time, he's a Lyft driver.
"Lyft has offered me a drastic change of pace and
scenery," says McMullen. "I think it's probably useful for all
creative people to put themselves into new and strange situations from time to
time."
{5} Learn
How to Brainstorm the Right Way
Stumped for ideas? You might just not know how to brainstorm.
"As sexy as brainstorming is, with people popping like
champagne with ideas, what actually happens is when one person is talking
you're not thinking of your own ideas," Leigh Thompson, a management
professor at the Kellogg School, told Fast Company.
"Sub-consciously you're already assimilating to my ideas." To avoid
these problems, Thompson suggests another, quieter process: brainwriting, or
having everyone write down their ideas beforehand and share them in an orderly
way.
{6} Don't Try So Hard
Forcing yourself to be creative backfires every time, says
Karin Hibma, one half of the legendary design firm CRONAN, founded in the early
'80s and known for naming products like TiVo and Kindle. Learn her unique approach to getting away from the
everyday and letting ideas flow.
{7} Get Serious
About Your Coffee
It may sound frivolous, but Circa CEO Matt Galligan devotes
a good chunk of his mornings to making coffee. It's a routine that's paid off
in helping him intensely focus. So whether caffeine is your muse,
or something else, take it to the next level.
{8} Hire
Other People With Outside Passions
FiftyThree has a one-to-one engineer-to-designer ratio, and
an interestingly holistic approach to hiring: Every employee should excel at
something outside of their job responsibilities. This model helps light people
on fire about their own ideas and collaborate more effectively to make them
happen. When creativity is institutional, everyone is better off.
{9} Plan a Field Trip
Three times a year, management at The Via Agency surprises
their employees with "go dos," shorthand for "get out, do
things," and they're part of a larger effort to promote creativity. The ad
agency operates under the theory that creativity comes from having a life outside of the
office. "We have found some of our most productive afternoons are after
we've done a spontaneous go do," says president Leeann Leahy. "The
energy level is raised for the rest of the day."
{10} Don't Get
Caught Up in Perfectionism
Legendary animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki can't stand to
see his own creations, lest he get caught up in his own mistakes. His solution? Move onto the next project. "Making films is all
about—as soon as you're finished—continually regretting what you've done. When
we look at films we've made, all we can see are the flaws; we can't even watch
them in a normal way. I never feel like watching my own films again. So unless
I start working on a new one, I'll never be free from the curse of the last
one."
{11} When All Else
fails, Drink
Back in 2012, when Bespoke Post was just a startup with
handful of people, it began as many new businesses do: with conversations
around beer. The gang met for a weekly happy hour at Lolita Bar on the Lower
East Side of Manhattan, which offered pints of better-than-average brews for
$3. Like at a lot of companies founded by young folks—like a lot of companies,
period—booze found its way into Bespoke Post’s DNA early.
