Where does creativity come from? What stimulates her? How can you inspire yourself every day? I will show you more than 10 tools that I use to keep my ingenuity at a consistently high level.
First, let’s explain the basics first.
Where does creativity come from?
When we imagine, we see a frame, on which the artist in madness paints 4 pictures in a row, he does not eat, he does not drink, and everything that comes out from his hand is genius. At the end, the painter falls in exhaustion on the chaise longue and the curtain falls. We see the poet at the desk, with a disgusted hair, with a glass of wine and a candle that soaks the pen in the inkwell, writes the entire ream of paper, goes to the highest mountain in the area and watches the storm as a metaphor of change and the announcement of peace. The curtain falls.
These are typical pictures showing creative elation, but as with such symbolic shots, they have little to do with reality.
What inspires you to be creative?
If you work in a position that requires you to be creative, then you know that ideas do not come out of nowhere. It requires different stimuli to get in on something interesting and unusual.
Today I will present you my favorite tools that give me the biggest dose of inspiration every day.
What stimulates creativity?
1. Notes – Paper, Evernote, Google Keep
Paper notebook – always at hand
Contrary to appearances, the most reliable tool that triggers creativity is an ordinary notebook and a pen. As my colleague used to say: “the simplest solutions are the simplest” (sic).
Carrying a notebook and something to write lets you not forget ideas that usually come at the least expected moment: in the car, on a walk, in the kitchen, in the shower. When we are focused on completely different activities, there are analogies, contexts that would otherwise be difficult to come up with.
The notebook will accept everything – notes, drawings, mind maps. Writing in a notebook every day a few minutes relaxes, allows thoughts to flow. Just as before the run the athlete has to warm up, the person who works creative, before starting the task should take a pen and just write.
I admit that they are one of my favorite traditional tools that I always carry with me.
What if you do not have a traditional notebook at hand? For sure you have a phone or a computer with you. Which tools can be used to save various types of text or graphics content efficiently, simply and nicely?
Google Keep – a simple notebook
I recommend testing a few tools and choosing the one that will best serve you, but it’s worth starting with a very simple Google Keep tool, which is great for short notes, thoughts, and everyday matters.
Evernote – a combine harvester
Evernote is, in turn, a powerful quoting tool, where you can organize several notebooks (for various activities, including private ones). It gives almost unlimited possibilities – you can create notes, entire articles supplemented with photos, files. Provides huge editing options. It works great when using it on several devices at the same time – all elements are automatically synchronized. In Evernote, we can set reminders for specific notes.
https://evernote.com/
2. Applications that will accommodate all inspirations – Pinterest, Blinkist
Millions of ideas appear every day in the world, but how many of them is something completely new? Most ideas are modifications, collages or putting something else that already exists in a different context.
The best way to come up with something is not to wait in an empty room in silence, but to be inspired by everything around you – world, culture, art, technology, nature. Remember the legend of Isaac Newton, who sat under a tree until the apple fell – then it occurred to him that the fall of bodies to Earth and the movement of celestial bodies are caused by gravity?
Maybe he could discover the same in different conditions, but most of us need a stimulus to get creative, which is why it’s so important to absorb everything that surrounds us.
One of the most inspiring applications can be Pinterest – a social channel that allows you to create an unlimited number of thematic tables, to which you can pin graphics materials from websites. See how your channel is built here by Vogue Paris:
Pinterest is a social channel, but it is also very useful and at work – through a huge search engine we can find inspiration for anything.
Blinkist
My second application, which provides me with inspiration every morning, is Blinkist, a library of shortened business and industry books. These types of books usually contain one or two ideas, which are described in many examples or historical aspects. Blinkist makes a pill that you can read or listen to in 15 minutes. The application can be used online and offline – you have to download the books you are interested in before.
Of course, a full book will never be given in a dozen minutes, but it is sometimes enough to refresh the mind, look at something from a distance and get inspired. Thanks to Blinkist I am familiar with a very large number of new books, thanks to which I know later which of them are worth my more attention and reading in full.
3.Content aggregates – Feedly, Pocket
Feedly
Of course, the daily dose of inspiration is also provided by news from the world of politics, marketing, art, technology and design – I gather all the pages that interest me in Feedly, a news aggregate.
The features I use often include marking texts to read later, pinning to specific tables of articles that I do not want to lose. From the application level or through extensions in the search engine, I can add any articles to my tables.
https://feedly.com/
Pocket works similarly – an application that is used to save and read articles or other content for later directly from the search engine or other applications. In Pocket, you can also follow people who recommend and share material worth reading.
https://getpocket.com/
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4. Social media groups: Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora, Inbound.org and profiles of well-known brands
A good dose of inspiration on a daily basis is also provided by groups in social media or on forums – it depends on the industry, which ones will be the most adequate, while in marketing you will surely track groups regarding, for example, social media, allow you to keep up with changes, allow you to read with other problems and their solutions. It is also often quick help in situations when support is not able to work immediately.
In the case of group marketing, LinkedIn is another mine of knowledge – practitioners exchange experiences, ask difficult questions, which give rise to discussion.
Similar purposes are served by Quor or Inbound.org (useful especially in marketing), where you can conduct discussions with people from around the world – ask questions and find various points of view. This is a good way to acquire in a very quick way practical knowledge, which allows you to avoid mistakes in the future, and also shows new solutions.
Since we are already on social media – it is worth following well-known brands on the Internet, which usually react the most to trends. By watching what they do, we can also react quickly to them.
Mail – newsletter
The basic tool on the Internet is e-mail. In addition to sales mailings of your favorite brands, you can subscribe to several valuable newsletters and keep up to date with industry news, inspirations from various fields.
Due to the lack of time of the application with the information, we may not open it, but we go to the email every day and probably a dozen (several hundred?) Times a day. An interesting text or video can always be read or viewed as part of the break.
In the case of marketing with an accent on content, I certainly recommend the Content Marketing Institute, Contently, Hubspot and Moz newsletters. From Polish newsletters I like to read Marketing at Coffee.
6. Culture and nature
Finally, let’s not forget that there is life outside the Internet (seriously). Everything that can be found offline can inspire us: people, animals, travel, books, music, cinema, art – in this case the list is unlimited. Sometimes it’s enough to leave the house to come up with something amazing.
What are you still doing here? 🙂
And you have your favorite tools that allow you to keep your creativity at a high level? 🙂
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