How to develop creativity and creative thinking, TOP 16 exercises

Development of creativity

Creative thinking is necessary not only for people whose profession is related to art. The ability to think creatively and unconventionally helps a person in solving everyday problems, allows them to feel free, get out of hackneyed patterns, and see opportunities where others see shortcomings. How to develop creativity and creative thinking? This is what the article is about.

A person is considered to have creative thinking if:

There is originality in his actions or thinking. He can create something unique and fundamentally new. He knows how to look for new opportunities even where, according to a person with ordinary thinking, they cannot exist. Creativity test: take one problem and find at least 20 ways to solve it within 15 minutes.
There is flexibility, the ability to expand your perception, to see uniqueness in the ordinary. Everyone's levels of creativity are different, but in general these qualities should be present.
There is the ability to generate different points of view. Factors and conditions do not matter in this case.
There is the ability to quickly switch from one thought to another without compromising quality.

Creativity trainer for adults, TOP 6 exercises

Creativity trainer for adults

Since creativity is the ability to find something new, it is not surprising that all the proposed exercises are aimed at developing this particular trait and broadening one’s horizons. The age of development of creativity is unlimited, so both children and adults can practice.

Associations

This exercise is done like this. You need to name 4 words at random, and then come up with a criterion according to which one of them will be redundant. For example: the words “parrot”, “chair”, “minced meat”, “river”.

Criterion No. 1: The river is superfluous, because a parrot, a chair, minced meat can be in the house, but the river cannot.

Criterion No. 2: The river is superfluous because it is a liquid, and all other objects are not.

Criterion No. 3: River is superfluous, because it is the only word that is feminine.

More complex association options

You need to make a list of 5 words, and then take the first and each subsequent word and find the commonality in them.
Quickly, on the go, name 6 words, and then divide them into two columns according to one of the characteristics.
Create a table of contents for a future article using any three words named at random. Then close your eyes and choose two words at random. With these words, on the fly, come up with a crime scene. Next, add a couple more words that will become evidence to solve the crime.

Questions

The question method is also great for developing creative thinking. You can do everything: refute hackneyed truths, reflect on history, be interested in the fate of humanity. You need to ask questions like these more often:

Why exactly this way and not another way? It will help you get to the bottom of things and understand your motivation.
Why not? Helps to reveal prohibitions, restrictions on the threshold to the positive.
And if? Helps broaden your horizons and get away from hackneyed truths.

Maximum possibilities

Sometimes, if a person sees a good opportunity, he grabs it with a death grip. At this point, the door of his thinking slams shut, and all potential options disappear in the bud. The task is to remove this barrier, achieve a selection of ideas, and then choose the best. That is, you just need to generate ideas, think through all the possibilities without emotions as to whether they are good or not. It is better to start training your thinking with trifles, and then move on to serious tasks.

Come up with 50 ways to use an empty plastic sour cream container.
Find 100 ways to title a text.

Mental maps

Compiling mind cards will help you see new connections in a large piece of information. Grouped key concepts will help to structure, bring into a system, and then find new associations in the whole picture. The algorithm is as follows:

Take blank A4 sheets, multi-colored markers and pencils.
Place the paper horizontally.
In the center you need to depict an exciting question in the form of some kind of sign.
Draw rays from this sign in the form of lines. There should be a lot of rays, at least 10.
On each line write the main solutions and ideas.
To each ray you need to add associative words and concepts.
Evaluate the result, try to find new relationships.
Analyze the picture as a whole, connect with arrows what inspired new solutions.
Cross out what is unnecessary.

6 words

You need to write down the essence of the problem in one sentence of six words. For example: “Pass driving exams with excellent marks,” “Master computer technology in a year of study.” Everything needs to be done clearly and quickly, and then this task must be implemented.

Don't ignore absurd things

The absurd was an important component of people's creativity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear used it in literature, Monty Python staged absurd comic acts, and the Dadaists and Surrealists used the absurd to create their works of art.

Exercise: Use visual language to create something absurd. This should offend outside observers, provoke them to take some action, and even better, make them laugh.

Creativity trainer for children, TOP 10 exercises

Creativity trainer for children

The principle of working with children: everything should be bright, interesting and in the form of a game. Children have good memories, but they get tired when they get bored. If it is interesting, children will join the game with pleasure and will develop. Since children are initially more open and flexible than adults, it will be much easier for them to reveal their creative potential.

For the development of imagination

You need to invent something that doesn't exist. It can be anything, even the most crazy ideas.

Encourage your child to imagine himself as a pilot or captain of a ship. What would he do in case of danger?

Make the baby move to some era of the past or future. What is going to be there? What kind of clothing, language, interior, historical events and objects? What would he do, for example, if he, a stranger, needed to survive in this environment?

Association method

Encourage your child to look at the clouds. And then say out loud what they look like. Perhaps the child will see animals, faces, facial expressions or plants.

3 magical colors

Take a palette of colors and invite your child to choose three shades that, in his opinion, go together. Then fill blank paper with these paints at random. At the end of the exercise, tell what the randomly painted sheet looks like.

Construction

No constructor needed. You need circles, squares and other shapes made of colored paper. Children will use them to put together pictures, figurines, houses and whatever they want.

Inventor

You need to name any two objects, and then dream about how they can be combined for benefit. For example, using a flashlight with keys to a lock, you can create a device that allows you to open doors in the dark.

Finish the drawing

You need to prepare sheets with half-drawn figures, plants, objects and ask your child to complete them.

Drawing to music

You can play your child something from the classics and ask him to close his eyes. And then ask what pictures and associations the music evokes. Then ask him to draw what he saw.

Continue the metaphor

This exercise is also suitable for little ones. The child will have to complete the comparison based on the principle of associations. For example:

squeaks piercingly like...
hungry as...
smart as...
reliable as...
red like...

Make one book with another

This method is suitable for older children. You need to name at random two works of different style and genre, and then ask the child to “transfer” the characters from one book to another. You can also change the course of an event, “throw” the plot from book to book, or add something. At the same time, you can mix fantasy and historical novels, fairy tales and stories, heroes of the 18th century and heroes of our time.

Continue the story

This exercise can be done in a group. The presenter begins to come up with a story, then stops mid-sentence and shouts out the first word that comes to his mind.

The next participant continues the story, but precisely from this word. After a piece of narration, he shouts out another word, foreign to this creation. The next participant continues again and so on.

Take notes

“Creative people are note-taking experts,” writes Professor Guy Claxton. They have better developed visual thinking skills. In How to Find Ideas, Ingledew advises noticing, collecting, and using things that most people don't even see. It is active curiosity that can show that the world is, in fact, full of ideas.

Exercise: Have you noticed that shadows sometimes randomly form the outlines of letters or numbers? New forms can be seen by observing the play of light and shadow, the movement of the hands on a dial, or simply the weather. Spontaneous notes help reveal the essence of things.

Tips during the training process

Tips during the training process

In order for the development of creative potential to occur automatically and the exercises to be more effective, you need to follow these points:

Be able to refuse. That is, do not grab the first idea, but put it aside and follow further with new options.
Be able to distract yourself. That is, putting the problem aside, and then, with fresh thoughts, deal with it again.
Don't be afraid to be funny . Any thought, even a crazy one, must be collected carefully as possible, at least theoretically. Developing creativity begins with the ability to believe in the impossible. Suffice it to remember that once “iron birds flying across the sky” were considered a sign of insanity.
A fundamental rejection of the usual , using the motto. "It happened before. What else can you offer?
Praise yourself even for small improvements . This is important because a satisfied brain becomes more accommodating and is not afraid to break away from reality.

Why do you need to develop creative thinking?

The thinking of an adult is replete with patterns and stereotypes. They make life much easier when you need to act according to an already known scheme. Reactions and actions are practiced to the point of automaticity, so we spend much less effort and time on them.

The working day of the average person consists of familiar actions and manipulations. We come to the office, sit down in our own chair, look through email, and perform a number of routine tasks. And so on day after day. For all these actions, strong neural networks are formed in our brain.

But life doesn't always go according to plan. When a situation arises that does not fit into the usual pattern and requires qualitatively new actions, we fall into a stupor. It is incredibly difficult to move away from the usual stereotypes. It's like driving off a deep rut on a country road.

A person who is able to quickly rebuild and adapt to changing conditions turns out to be several times more effective. Therefore, it is necessary to develop creative thinking. It makes the mind more flexible, plastic, and variable. And it allows you to successfully solve not only familiar routine tasks, but also qualitatively new ones.

Developed creative thinking is an integral characteristic of a person whose activity is related to creativity in one form or another. And these are not only artists, writers and musicians. Many modern fashionable professions fall under this category: marketer, PR manager, designer, copywriter, content manager and others. The world is changing and requires a person to be able to quickly adapt to these changes.

Nice bonus

Nice bonus

The brain of a trained person allows him not only to be quick-witted and quickly solve problems. In adults, exercise develops balance and endurance, and a trained person’s mood improves. There is also healthy self-confidence and self-esteem.

In children, exercises develop memory, ingenuity, interest in learning and a rich imagination.

How to develop creativity and creative thinking? Regularly perform the above training to develop creativity and creative abilities. The main condition is regularity. At the same time, you can train anywhere. As soon as you have even a minute of time: in transport, in a traffic jam, in line to see the doctor, before going to bed, or vice versa, early in the morning. All technologies and techniques are effective, you just need to implement them. Within a month of training, the first results will be noticeable, and after a year, a trained person will radically change his life for the better.

Use proven solutions in a new field of activity

A ready-made, successful and time-tested template can work in another area. This often leads to the invention of useful things. Inventor Owen McLaren used an aircraft landing gear system to create a folding pram. James Dyson used a sawdust extraction system in sawmills to develop a home vacuum cleaner.

Both inventions became familiar elements of everyday life, and appeared thanks to the application of old knowledge in a new area. Therefore, if you realize that you have reached a dead end and that your system is not working, try using something from another field of activity.

Exercise: Think about how theater set changes can be applied to your workspace setup.

Try to interpret

Ideas are very easy to transform. Changing the shape or size of things can force you to think in new and unexpected directions. One idea gives birth to another: in this way you can glean many new thoughts from the creativity of other people.

Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky conveyed classical music through visual language. He chose colors to represent the emotions that music evoked and used them to create paintings.

Exercise: Convey the following words using typographic symbols as a visual rather than a linguistic tool: laziness, happiness, loud, soft.

Create the right conditions

To come up with ideas quickly and regularly, you need to understand in what conditions it is easier for you to work. Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky mused: “If we wait for the mood without trying to create it ourselves, we will quickly become lazy and apathetic.”

Exercise: Learn about the creative process of famous people. For example, the German poet Friedrich Schiller said that it was easier for him to work if he could smell rotting apples.

Change the context

A small change in ordinary things can lead to a new idea. It can be found by changing the point of view on the subject or changing the context in which it is located.

In 1917, at the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, Marcel Duchamp presented his exhibit “Fountain”. It was a urinal laid flat: thus the changed context became an element of the work of art.

Exercise: Highlight something inconspicuous. For example, go to a building materials store and find an inexpensive product. Think about how it can be used in an unusual way.

General recommendations for the inner creator to grow and develop

Stick to a daily routine

In his latest work, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami debunks the myth of the creative lazy person, talking about the fact that a strict daily routine (getting up at 5 a.m., bedtime at 10 pm) became the main catalyst for his performance. The mind is inclined to be capricious and find excuses for its own laziness, and following a routine takes it out of its comfort zone and teaches it to turn on half a turn.

Don't neglect other creative activities

Draw, write, learn to play the guitar or dance. Any creative activity keeps the brain in good shape, and alternating them switches attention and allows you to find answers in rather unexpected places.

According to research, more than a third of Nobel Prize laureates in literature were engaged in another form of art - painting, theater or dance. Einstein called music his second passion and, if he had not become a physicist, most likely would have become a violinist.

Don't give up

When things don't get off the ground, persevere. For example, the writer Rody Doyle says that during a stupor he begins to pour out on paper the nonsense that comes to mind. After a while, the brain stops pushing and protesting and simply turns off, releasing streams of thoughts. And Hemingway, when he sat down to write a novel, could write dozens of versions of the first sentence until he found the one he believed. Then he developed the action from it.

Don't get hung up

If persistence does not help, we go from the opposite. Take a walk, do something distracted, communicate with other people. There is a theory according to which everything has long been invented, and the creative process lies only in the combination of these ideas. And if the answers are hidden within us, we just need to tune in to the right wave and hear them. You can sit in the sun in the lotus position, concentrate on washing the dishes, walk through the forest listening to ambient music, or go jumping at a rock concert. The main thing is to do things that allow us to turn off our internal dialogue and focus on the moment.

Treat creativity like a game

Creativity is, first and foremost, fun. Don't take it too seriously. Now I will explain why. In 2001, an experiment was conducted at Maryland College in which students had to guide a mouse through a maze drawn as in childhood. The students of the first group walked forward towards the piece of cheese (positive attitude), while the second group ran away from the owl (negative attitude). Both groups completed it in the same amount of time, but the students of the second group started avoidance mechanisms, and the second group took, on average, 50% longer to solve the problems that followed the maze than the students of the first group.

Just start

Many of us in childhood dreamed of becoming musicians, artists or actors, but over time, a pragmatic approach to life pushed these dreams further into the mezzanine. Betsy Edwards has a theory that for most people today, the left side of the brain becomes dominant as they age. She is responsible for analytical thinking, the symbol system and the mode of action, and every time we try to learn to play the guitar or draw, we hear her voice, which advises us to put this bullshit aside and do something useful.

At first it will be difficult to step over the inner critic, but if you have the courage and desire, then over time his voice will become quieter, and criticism in the style of “you draw like an asshole” will be replaced by something more constructive. Getting started is the hardest thing.