How can you be more creative? What happens when you get stuck? How can you build a creative habit?

1. PRACTICAL
CREATIVITY
DAN SAFFER
@ODANNYBOY

2. (Ugh.)

4. 2008
Interaction08
Two cello recitals
Three major design projects
10+ speaking engagements
Started a design studio
Wrote a book

5. BY 2011, I WAS DONE.

6. JIM HARRISON
Trying to teach creativity is the
major hoax of our time.

7. PRACTICAL CREATIVITY
REFRAME CREATIVITY
BUILDING THE CREATIVE HABIT
FAILURE AND GETTING UNSTUCK

8. MICHAEL BIERUT
I don’t think design involves that much creativity. It
involves creativity in the way doing a crossword
puzzle involves creativity. You need some
imagination and knowledge. I think of artists as
creative because they have to invent something out
of nothing. I think designers design because they
can’t invent something out of nothing.

9. PRACTICAL CREATIVITY
Imagination + Knowledge
Outside Constraints x Time

10. IF YOU WANT TO BE
MORE CREATIVE,
SPEND MORE TIME
WITH THE PROBLEM.

11. STEVE JOBS
When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the
first solutions you come up with are very complex,
and most people stop there. But if you keep going,
and live with the problem and peel more layers of
the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very
elegant and simple solutions.

12. THE THREE HARDEST PARTS
OF ANY CREATIVE PROJECT
1. STARTING
2. KEEPING GOING
3. FINISHING

13. CHUCK CLOSE:
If you’re sitting around trying to dream
up a great art idea, you can sit there a
long time before anything happens.
But if you just get to work, something
will occur to you.

14. JOHN CLEESE
We don’t know where we get
our ideas from. What we do know is
that we don’t get them
from our laptops.

15. IF YOU WANT TO BE
SOMETHING DIFFERENT,
YOU HAVE TO DO
DIFFERENT THINGS.

16. BUILDING THE
CREATIVE HABIT

17. READ BOOKS
XXX

18. WHEN YOU’RE STARTING
OUT, READ AS MANY
DESIGN BOOKS AS YOU
CAN. ONCE YOU’RE
ESTABLISHED, READ AS
FEW AS YOU CAN.

19. BLOCK OFF TIME
FOR CREATIVITY

20. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO
UNDERSTAND WHEN
YOU’RE THE MOST (AND
LEAST) CREATIVE AND
USE THAT TIME WISELY.

21. START WITH A RITUAL

22. TWYLA THARP:
It’s vital to establish some rituals—automatic but
decisive patterns of behavior—at the beginning
of the creative process, when you are most at
peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up,
or going the wrong way.

23. ?? ??? ?
KEEP A LIST OF BIG
QUESTIONS

24. KEEPING YOUR BRAIN
ON A LOW SIMMER
ALLOWS FOR
SERENDIPITY.

25. KEEP NOTEBOOKS

26. TAKE WALKS

27. 2014 STANFORD STUDY
Walking indoors or outdoors boosted creative
inspiration. The act of walking itself, and not the
environment, was the main factor. Creativity levels
were consistently and significantly higher for those
walking compared to those sitting.
Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking
on Creative Thinking by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz

28. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
All truly great thoughts
are conceived by walking.

29. FILL THE WELLFILL THE WELL

30. EFFICIENCY CAN BE THE
ENEMY OF CREATIVITY.

31. KILL YOUR DEFAULTS

32. MARCELA SAPONE
It's your job to do things that make you
uncomfortable. That is how you gain wisdom. It is
your job to use everything you do as a learning
opportunity and to see how things are connected.
That is how you build creativity.

33. CREATE A BAG
OF LENSES.

34. TURN OFF THE STREAM

37. 2015 SMART PHONE USE STUDY
Participants estimated an average of 37 uses
throughout the day, but the actual number
was around 85
“Beyond Self-Report: Tools to Compare Estimated and Real-World Smartphone Use,” Sally Andrews

38. 2011 UVA STUDY
In 11 experiments involving more than 700 people,
the majority of participants reported that they found it
unpleasant to be alone in a room with their thoughts
for just 6 to 15 minutes.

39. BE COMFORTABLE
WITH INTROSPECTION.

41. SCREEN SABBATICALS
AND SHABBOTS

42. TIFFANY SHLAIN
The idea is that one day a week, you need to get
your mind in a different mode, you need to not work.
Every week, your brain—and your soul—needs
to be reset.

43. 2016 STUDY ON
ASSOCIATIVE ACTIVATION
A high mental load consistently diminished the
originality and creativity of subjects’ responses
“Associative Activation and Its Relation to Exploration and Exploitation in the Brain,” Moshe Bar

44. MEDITATE

45. 2014 LEIDEN UNIVERSITY STUDY
The advantages of particular types of meditation
extend much further than simply relaxation. The
findings support the belief that meditation can have a
long-lasting influence on human cognition, including
how we think and how we experience events.
Meditate to create: the impact of focused-attention and open-monitoring training on convergent and
divergent thinking by Lorenza S. Colzato, Ayca Ozturk and Bernhard Hommel, '

46. HAVE A HOBBY OR
SIDE PROJECT(S)

47. THE POINT OF
A CREATIVE PRACTICE
IS TO HEIGHTEN
SENSITIVITY.

48. YOUR BRAIN IS A RADIO

49. FAILURE AND
GETTING STUCK

50. THERE HAS NEVER
BEEN A HARDER TIME
TO BE CREATIVE
FOR ONE REASON:
INSTANT FEEDBACK.

51. THINGS I’VE BEEN
CALLED RECENTLY:
paternalistic scum
misinformed
glib
sensationalistic
reactionary
wrong
a smart jerk

54. FOCUS ON MAKING
A BODY OF WORK,
NOT ANY ONE
INDIVIDUAL PIECE.

55. NEVER CELEBRATE
FAILURE ITSELF.
CELEBRATE LEARNING
FROM FAILURE.

56. A COMPLETE LIST OF THINGS
THAT INHIBIT CREATIVITY:
1. EVERYTHING

57. WHAT TO DO WHEN
YOU GET STUCK

59. HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is the spirit in which you do a thing
which makes it interesting, whether it is
sweeping a room or pulling turnips.

60. IF THE TASK IS BORING,
MAKE THE WAY YOU DO
THE TASK INTERESTING.

61. PAUL SAHRE
I think designers who aren’t selfish do
really awful work. I think there needs to
be a motivation at the core of the work.
There needs to be a motivation for the
designer to go beyond the point where
most people would stop.

63. SYLVIA PLATH
The worst enemy
to creativity
is self-doubt.

64. ACT AS THOUGH
YOU ARE 10%
MORE COURAGEOUS.

65. ASK FOR HELP.
IT’S NOT AN ADMISSION
OF FAILURE.

66. TWO UNSTUCK STRATEGIES
1. Power through it.
2. Procrastinate.

67. POWER THROUGH IT
WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT
NEEDS TO BE DONE AND
HOW YOU’LL DO IT.

68. PROCRASTINATE WHEN
YOU “HIT THE WALL”

69. SEARCH FOR THE
FEELING BEHIND THE
PROCRASTINATION.

70. BEST WAYS TO PROCRASTINATE
Take a walk
Take a shower
Take a drive
Go somewhere new
Drink alcohol

71. JEFF BEENE
Alcohol is for
generating ideas.
Caffeine is for
documenting
them.

72. SOMETIMES IT IS ONLY
WHEN WE STOP TRYING
THAT THE SOLUTION
ARRIVES.

73. PRACTICAL CREATIVITY
REFRAME CREATIVITY
BUILDING THE CREATIVE HABIT
FAILURE AND GETTING UNSTUCK

74. BE WEIRD,
BE UNUSUAL,
BE CREATIVE:
THAT’S WHAT WILL
SAVE YOU.

75. THANK YOU
DAN SAFFER
@ODANNYBOY