Creativity Day

Ways to Celebrate

There are many ways to exercise your imagination, practice shifting your perspective, and develop the skills and attitudes of creativity.

Here are a few suggestions:

Try something new, for example:

• Try a new recipe, a new cuisine, a new restaurant
• Travel a new route to work
• Ride a T line you've never traveled
• While driving to work, explore options on the radio dial

Expect many right answers. When thinking up ideas, always look for another "right" answer, rather than just going with the first acceptable idea. As Linus Pauling said, "The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."

Thinking of alternate uses for common objects is a standard creativity exercise that really works to help you build mental flexibility.   While stuck in traffic, try to come up with ten alternative uses for your coffee cup.   Or, while waiting in the supermarket checkout line, imagine different ways to use that tabloid newspaper staring at you.

Keep an idea journal. When you begin to focus on deliberate creativity, you'll be amazed at how many more ideas will come your way.

Take breaks, daydream, meditate, take a walk. After concentrated effort, let your mind incubate on a challenge, and ideas will come

to you.

Spend time with children. Watch how playful, how open, how imaginative they are. As Picasso once remarked, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

Share the day with others

• Spread the word! Tell everyone you meet about Creativity Day
• Download and post a flyer designed by Fernando Saez Comet

• Donate time to a community organization and share your creative spirit with others
• Create a greeting card for someone who inspires you
• At home or at work  
  • Establish a bulletin board to post quotations and cartoons about creativity
  • Create a suggestion box and invite contributions
  • Discuss creativity and share examples
  • Organize a talent show

   

Want some other ideas?  Visit the

International Creativity and Innovation Day website.