I saw this video the other day that posed the idea to explore what you already know to come up with new ideas. Don't try to come up with ideas about knowledge that is at the edge of what you know.
Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#22“Creative” really just means “ideas unlike everyone else’s ideas.” Ergo, if you have the same inputs as everyone else, you’ll most likely have the same outputs too. The solution? Change your inputs. The three people you mentioned are all very much in the same milieu of thought, which one might call “technology-adjacent rationalist.” They all basically have the same worldview, when it comes down to brass tacks. My sug…
You may have the same inputs but think in a creative way - for instance: start by taking two dissimilar things and explore the possibilities, real and metaphorically.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#23I'm also not creative. Two (unoriginal) ideas: 1. Do cross disciplinary things, a lot of creativity is really just porting common knowledge to another domain 2. Be contrarian. Assume everything you hear is wrong, unless you can connect it back to first principles you understand. You'll often end up being correct, and discovering some insight that the crowd hasn't come upon yet (the downside of this is people will thi…
Yes, contrarian can be useful to identify strongly held assumptions, once you get past all assumptions you arrive at the first principle.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#24One thing I've noticed with myself is that I often struggle with creativity too, unless I go do something majorly, radically different and recreational/social. Once that happens, ideas flow like a tsunami whether I want them to or not.
For example, as a kid I was stuck in a rut and routine, school, homework, repeat. Then on a long weekend my step dad and step brothers and I went canoeing in Arkansas. I absolutely hated every goddamn minute of it. We capsized half a dozen times and nearly died at one point, nearly capsizing when going over a sharp and shallow decline (thankfully adrenaline saved us). Well on drive back home (something like ~4 hours) I had a TON of creative thoughts for everything from music videos to a kickass fictional story for english class I had otherwise been struggling with. I was beyond bored with all of it before that, and that one day trip totally shattered the entire cycle and set me loose for a good while.
As an adult, I had another similar "burst" following a rut after passing my first Krav Maga test (WW). It was essentially a ~6 hour non-stop full-power, full-speed demonstration of every beginner defense technique repeatedly. We had a grand total of 15 minutes of break throughout the entire time (two breaks, total). Not everybody passed, and I was surprised that I did. After that I had a total "revelation" breakthrough idea on how to address a particularly tough technical problem I was working on at the time (very early in my career) that I'd been struggling with for a while.
Basically the common theme that works for me is to absolutely go apeshit balls-to-the-wall on something physical outside the home and preferably very social (ill-advised during the pandemic, bear in mind) that will last at least a good 4+ hours, create some really strong life-long memories, and entirely disconnect you from your normal "world", that upon completion, you'll be in a hella good mood. For me, that tends to break the boredom and the blockage same-day if not immediately thereafter. The trick is to be so involved in whatever it is that the other stuff literally is COMPLETELY absent from your mind, not even an emotional "whiff" of it present. If you still think about it, or are still "feeling" an emotion tied to it, you're not lost in the activity enough so dial it up!
Also, just a friendly pointer, stop trying. Creativity is the most counter-intuitive notion of the human mind in that, the more you try, the worse your creativity block gets. But you can't just "let go", you have to entirely OVERWRITE your mind's activity with something else, 100%, without even the smallest hint of the problem/concern/blockage in your mind in the slightest. Only when you're totally distracted and, frankly, having some damn fun will your mind be "free" to work the problem "as a background job" so to speak. Or in another thread, if you prefer :-)
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#25To have an original idea i need to take my mind of things.
For small problems i like taking a walk, sometimes talking to someone helps (a dog is great at that, they love the attention, or a guinea pig which will also talk back to you (week week brrr...) just to be able to work at the situation at hand from a different perspective since you have to explain the situation to someone without knowledge about it.
doing something totally different for a while.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#26Add a lot of constraints to the problem you are trying to solve. If you watch cooking shows on TV you
may have noticed that the more WTF the theme is the more creative the chefs are.
Think about how much more creative you have to be to prepare a delicious dish when the theme is 'peas' vs when it is 'lobster'.
I am creating a website that teaches Japanese using only Japanese. I have also set the constraint that it has to be through genuinely enjoyable content. Another constraint is that all the visual element must be HTML&CSS (no asset, no javascript). Turns out I have to find very creative ways to make it work (the site is in my bio).
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#27Listen. You have the skills, you’re just lacking the inspiration. People have so many things they want solved, or to see, or to experience. Listen to what people say at work, at the coffee shop, at parties, wherever. Ask yourself afterwards what you thought about their desires, were they superficial, shallow, meaningful, insightful..? Did their thought or question resonate with you? If it did then try creating something in some way that relates to that question.
Alternatively just sit down, with a piece of paper, stare at it, and just make a mark on it, then another, then another. If you get a giant pile of scribbles grab another piece of paper and do the same. Try arranging them all together to see if you see something that means something to you. Frequently artists draw things not even realizing they were drawing what they drew.
Lastly, if all else fails, just let go. Set your intention, that you want to create something, then surrender to life and put that intention in the back of your mind and forget about it. At some point in the future that thought will pop back into your mind out of nowhere with some sort of solution.
Finally, be gentle with yourself. No one is a perfect creator that has never struggled. Give yourself the space to learn, grow, and to find the things, people, and experiences that inspire you.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#28You may not want creativity. You can't turn it off.
Also, the world needs people like you far more than people like me. I might move the world forward tomorrow because I create x or b or zx or d, we shall see, won't we? But you will make the world better today for being able to obey, unincumbered by all the shiny things that bounce and trounce your head askant.
Creativity is a bit bunk, basically; just don't dare take it from me.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at original thinking and being creative?
#29Slow down, and observe. What looks like creativity from the outside is being able to synthesize lots of information into an easily-digestible form that nobody has ever thought of before. The reagents for that are 1) taking in lots of information, which it seems like you already do and 2) spending the time to mentally organize it and mull it over, which if you're busy doing things, you won't have time for. Also don't…
Great advice/insight. I can personally relate it directly to musical improvisation for example.