According to a post by Tony Schwartz on the Harvard Business Review blog page, a century’s worth of research has produced some agreement on what leads to creative thinking. Schwartz discusses the left-right brain connections and also has four stages.
“1. Saturation: Once the problem or creative challenge has been defined, the next stage of creativity requires absorbing one's self in what's already known. Any creative breakthrough inevitably rests on the shoulders of all that came before it.
2. Incubation: The second stage of creativity begins when we walk away from a problem. Incubation involves mulling over information, often unconsciously.
3. Illumination: Ah-ha moments — spontaneous, intuitive, unbidden — characterize the third stage of creativity. Where are you when you get your best ideas? I'm guessing it's not when you're sitting at your desk, or consciously trying to think creatively. Rather it's when you're doing something else, whether it's exercising, taking a shower, driving or even sleeping.
4. Verification: This stage is about challenging and testing the creative breakthrough you've had. Scientists do this in a laboratory. Painters do it on a canvas. Writers do it by translating a vision into words. How do you do this?”
More importantly, this all takes practice. Like all important skills, it needs to be practiced.
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