Thea
Imagine an app that can induce hyper-creativity at a genius level within seconds of use. Too good to be true? Yes, yes it is.
While this magical app does not exist, there are powerful science-backed tips that can help you on your journey to becoming more creative. Like all things involving a significant reward, increasing creativity takes effort and dedication.
As established in Chronicles of Creativity Part I, originality and utility are the most widely accepted tenets of creativity. Creativity isn’t merely a gift some people are born with; it is a skill that can be honed and readily accessed through practiced experience in a creative task.
Time to start practicing.
Welcome to the second installment of the Chronicles of Creativity where we will delve into 5 science-backed strategies to enhance creativity.
1. Mitigate the ultimate killer of the creative flow state
Flow: “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
Csikszentmihalyi
First and foremost, kill distraction before it kills your creativity.
Today, distractions are as accessible as the cyborg-like attachment we hold in our hands. The prevalence of electronic distractions will only increase over time.
Every buzz, chime, or ring pulls us out of focus/deep work/flow state, and it can take us on average 23 min and 15 sec to reimmerse ourselves in the task. This flow state is often associated with creativity. As revealed in Chronicles of Creativity Part I, flow state comes more naturally when engaged in tasks we’ve already practiced.
Additionally, 72% of individuals participating in a study claimed to get creative ideas in the shower. What might that tell you about the impediment of distraction (and solitary reflection)?
I love how Andrew Huberman puts the relationship between smartphones and creativity:
Smartphones are both the rocket ships to creativity and the chains to the ground.
Andrew Huberman
If you struggle to control phone usage, check out this site where you can find a plethora of phone downgrade options (aka “dumb phones”).
2. Work creativity like a muscle
As determined by the study mentioned in Part I using analyses from jazz musicians, creativity is a skill that can be practiced and honed.
You can apply this concept to practicing routine creativity.
- Have something on you at all times to capture your ideas (e.g. a notepad, phone notes, napkin, your palm).
- Learn all the time. The more new things you learn about, the more experience you can draw from to be creative. With diverse knowledge comes interconnection, a cornerstone of creativity.
- Regularly do interesting things. Plan to do something once a week you wouldn’t normally do to break the monotony.
3. Sleep on a creative problem
To go about this, use targeted dream incubation (TDI). Dream incubation requires focused attention on a problem or situation before you go to sleep to trigger dreams relating to that topic.
A Harvard study done by Deidre Barrett to uncover the effectiveness of dream incubation for problem solving found that half of the participants reported having dreams related to their focus and a majority of these claimed that their dream contained a solution.
We’re in a different biochemical state when we’re dreaming, and that’s why I think dreams can be so helpful anytime we’re stuck in our usual mode of thinking
Deidre Barrett
Barrett suggests the following incubation practice:
“If you want to problem-solve in a dream, you should first of all think of the problem before bed, and if it lends itself to an image, hold it in your mind and let it be the last thing in your mind before falling asleep. For extra credit, assemble something on your bedside table that makes an image of the problem. If it’s a personal problem, it might be the person you have the conflict with. If you’re an artist, it might be a blank canvas. If you’re a scientist, the device you’re working on that’s half assembled or a mathematical proof you’ve been writing through versions of.”
Barrett continues to suggest a refrain from getting up quickly when you wake. Any distraction can cause a disintegration of dream content. Just lie there and try to recall the dream content or the emotion related to the dream.
MIT in collaboration with multiple other groups created a project called Dormio to help users access the world of hypnagogia (the phase between wakefulness and sleep) by extending it. Hallucinations and sleep paralysis can commonly occur during this hypnagogic phase. The Dormio system uses TDI protocols as well. Click here to read more about the Dormio project.
4. Try solving a problem with many constraints
When people think about creativity, they often think about eradicating rules and breaking boundaries. Only in the most open field with all possibilities on the horizon can the creative process flourish.
Wrong!
Research from the article Creativity and Innovation Under Constraints found deadlines and scarce resources often propel the exploration of novel ideas through enhanced focus and creative challenge.
The alternative method, where options and time are limitless, allows for complacency or the seeking of “the path of least resistance”.
The research tracked engineers given a specific amount of money, time and resources to produce an advanced EKG device that met a list of progressive standards. The research concluded that the engineers succeeded because of the constraints, not despite of the constraints.
Take the TV show Chopped, for example. Chopped requires contestants to construct three dishes using four mystery (and often unusual) ingredients. Contestants have all sorts of kitchen tools at their disposal as well as a full pantry of standard ingredients. They simply must use all four mystery ingredients in each dish. With these constraints, contestants produce outlandish combinations far outside of their comfort zones. The delicious winning dishes could be considered creative masterpieces. because they follow the creative tenets of originality and utility.
5. Practice purposeful daydreaming
Daydreaming is great for creativity. However, if your goal is enhanced creativity, not all daydreaming is created equal. According to science, daydreaming only associated with planning and/or problem-solving does not induce creative behaviors.
The following excerpt from a study recounts two types of daydreaming that seem to enhance different modes of creativity: “…personally meaningful daydreaming predicts self-reported creative behavior and daily inspiration, whereas fantastical daydreaming predicts creative writing quality and day-to-day creative behavior”
Two types of meditation that enhance creativity
In this podcast about creativity, Andrew Huberman suggests 2 types of meditations to enhance creativity: open monitoring (divergent) followed by focused attention (convergent).
He defines divergent thinking as “taking one element and coming up with many, many answers.” He notes that not all answers are interesting and/or relevant to the solution, and, therefore, not all divergent ideas embody true creativity.
To enhance divergent thinking, practice open monitoring meditation. The protocol includes taking a minimum of 5 minutes to close your eyes and take an inventory of your thoughts as they arise without judgment.
Huberman defines convergent thinking as the opposite of divergent thinking: “A convergent thinking task would involve you being given a list of two or three or maybe even five different things, and then for each of those two or three or five different things, as quickly as you can, to come up with a single answer that binds all of those in a real-world concept that obey the laws of nature or physics in some way.” Convergent thinking requires us to access our personal knowledge about the world.
Follow the open monitoring mediation with focused attention mediation which enhances convergent thinking. Focused attention meditation similarly involves taking a minimum of 5 minutes to close your eyes. Instead of opening up your mind to all possibilities, focus on just one element. For example, focus on a single idea, a single image, a single sound, or anything that you can divert all of your attention towards for an extended period of time. Focused attention meditation helps with dedicated choice selection so you arrive at the correct answer faster.
Key Takeaways
To enhance creativity, follow these science-backed strategies:
- Mitigate distraction, the ultimate killer of creative flow state
- Work creativity like a muscle to make it a skill
- Sleep on a creative problem after you’ve intentionally targeted the problem
- Try solving a problem with many constraints
- Practice purposeful daydreaming, not simply planning and problem-solving in your head
