There was a time when I had just a few books and I new exactly where to find them, the name of the authors, the most interesting chapters, etc. For some reason, my books were multiplied (the same as my clothes) and many other material possessions.
Suddenly you forget where are the most important books, the clothes you like and you find too many things around to think clearly. Even when you know a lot of creative thinking techniques you can loose perspective of the ones that you really like because of trying new ones or the ones that other people use.
It can happen even with toys, when you have so many that you spend more time tidying than playing with them.
Then you find that one day you go away, just with a notebook, and you find yourself writing your own ideas, enjoying without having too many things around you, just a notebook where you write your thoughts, that become more appreciated that the most expensive of your products.
And then you wonder, how to go back to enjoy a simple life, a life where you can create without wasting time clearing your physical and mental space?
Simple living, simple thinking. It is too easy to consume in our society. How to go back to that simple living? There are very interesting tips in the blog http://zenhabits.net/ as well as in the website http://www.theminimalists.com/
On a practical note about how to spend less, there are the famous questions of Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis: Do I need it? Can I afford it? Have I checked if it is cheaper anywhere else? Will I use it? Is it worthy? http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/stop-spending-budgeting-tool
An easy way of decluttering not only material possessions, but also anything in your life is to ask: Is this adding value to my life? It is the type of thing you do when you are looking at throwing or giving away clothes and you wonder "Will I use it?".
When thinking about creative thinking techniques, some of the best known are brainstorming, analogies, etc. and other different techniques that can be used for problem solving. However, the same way that the topic can be made more complex and multiply the different techniques that can be used, making it something that looks very complex, there are ways to make it very simple, in the sense that with for example just using brainstorming, or brainwriting, you could develop steps for problem solving.
For example:
You could use a brainstorming to identify areas of improvement. Once you have decided an area of improvement, you could do a brainstorming to find specific topics in the chosen area (this is like choosing a subject, and inside the subject, to choose a chapter).
You could do a brainstorming of ways to define the problem, for example writing a list of sentences that start with "How to..." that can address the problem identified previously, approaching it from different angles.
Brainstorming is well known as a way of generating ideas, as many as possible (quantity produces quality), without criticizing them, encouraging them, inviting wild ideas, using ideas mentioned to provoked new ones, etc. But at the same time the brainstorming can be use as "antibrainstorming". The idea is that when you are choosing ideas, you take each of them and think about all the things that can be wrong if choosing that idea, all the negative aspects of that idea.
Etc., etc., etc.
So, the same way that a toolbox has many different tools for different purposes, there are some tools that can be used for many different purposes. There is no need to have three tools if there could be a tool that can be used for three different purposes.
That is the way I found Creative thinking: after having found many useful books useful for personal and professional development, I wondered: Could there be just one book to help with everything? Then, that was the beginning, when I started reading about creativity and problem solving and decided to write my first book about the topic.
Suddenly you forget where are the most important books, the clothes you like and you find too many things around to think clearly. Even when you know a lot of creative thinking techniques you can loose perspective of the ones that you really like because of trying new ones or the ones that other people use.
It can happen even with toys, when you have so many that you spend more time tidying than playing with them.
Then you find that one day you go away, just with a notebook, and you find yourself writing your own ideas, enjoying without having too many things around you, just a notebook where you write your thoughts, that become more appreciated that the most expensive of your products.
And then you wonder, how to go back to enjoy a simple life, a life where you can create without wasting time clearing your physical and mental space?
Simple living, simple thinking. It is too easy to consume in our society. How to go back to that simple living? There are very interesting tips in the blog http://zenhabits.net/ as well as in the website http://www.theminimalists.com/
On a practical note about how to spend less, there are the famous questions of Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis: Do I need it? Can I afford it? Have I checked if it is cheaper anywhere else? Will I use it? Is it worthy? http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/stop-spending-budgeting-tool
An easy way of decluttering not only material possessions, but also anything in your life is to ask: Is this adding value to my life? It is the type of thing you do when you are looking at throwing or giving away clothes and you wonder "Will I use it?".
When thinking about creative thinking techniques, some of the best known are brainstorming, analogies, etc. and other different techniques that can be used for problem solving. However, the same way that the topic can be made more complex and multiply the different techniques that can be used, making it something that looks very complex, there are ways to make it very simple, in the sense that with for example just using brainstorming, or brainwriting, you could develop steps for problem solving.
For example:
You could use a brainstorming to identify areas of improvement. Once you have decided an area of improvement, you could do a brainstorming to find specific topics in the chosen area (this is like choosing a subject, and inside the subject, to choose a chapter).
You could do a brainstorming of ways to define the problem, for example writing a list of sentences that start with "How to..." that can address the problem identified previously, approaching it from different angles.
Brainstorming is well known as a way of generating ideas, as many as possible (quantity produces quality), without criticizing them, encouraging them, inviting wild ideas, using ideas mentioned to provoked new ones, etc. But at the same time the brainstorming can be use as "antibrainstorming". The idea is that when you are choosing ideas, you take each of them and think about all the things that can be wrong if choosing that idea, all the negative aspects of that idea.
Etc., etc., etc.
So, the same way that a toolbox has many different tools for different purposes, there are some tools that can be used for many different purposes. There is no need to have three tools if there could be a tool that can be used for three different purposes.
That is the way I found Creative thinking: after having found many useful books useful for personal and professional development, I wondered: Could there be just one book to help with everything? Then, that was the beginning, when I started reading about creativity and problem solving and decided to write my first book about the topic.
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