Organizing Creativity

by Daniel Wessel

Creativity, deliberately creating something that is new and useful, is more than just one idea. Whether in art, science, or for private creative projects, a good idea needs countless other ideas. An idea for a plot needs ideas for characters, settings, and dialogues, an idea for a study needs ideas for dependent variables, instructions, and materials. And even private projects need to be fleshed out. To deal with these ideas and to actually realize the projects, creativity needs an unlikely ally -- organization. In this book, we look at creativity, organization, ways to organize creativity by mastering the topic, generating ideas, capturing ideas, collecting ideas, realizing and archiving creative projects, and at tools, general tips, and resources. This book aims to enlarge your options when working in science (incl. engineering and commercial projects), art, or on private projects, to improve the chance of realizing creative projects. The focus is on creating the infrastructure for having ideas and realizing them.

Genres: Productivity, Self Help

400 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2012

Reviews

[Blue · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot imagine who this book would be for other than an alien who has never used paper or their mind for creative pursuits before. Every tip in here is so obvious it's silly.

For example, page 100 has a list of ways to "Capture Ideas'" such as by writing them down on paper, using a voice recorder, or typing them into a computer.

One tip went as far as to say I should consider using my own home as a place to work on my project (page 65: Good Places for Work)