Creativity

One of the things I resolve to do in 2010 is to devote sub­stan­tial amounts of inten­tional effort towards the devel­op­ment of my cre­ativ­ity. I view cre­ativ­ity as a per­sonal strength, and I think it makes sense to spend con­sid­er­able time enhanc­ing this asset.  Inspired by my friend Artie Isaac, I am going to engage in a rig­or­ous pro­gram to super­charge my creativity.

One way I am going to achieve this goal is read books related to the topic of Cre­ativ­ity.  I know I will make mod­i­fi­ca­tions, but thus far my list is as follows:

• The Back Of The Nap­kin — Dan Roam
• Drive — Dan Pink
• Why Not? — Barry Nale­buff & Ian Ayres
• Mind­ful­ness — Ellen Langer
• Hap­pi­ness — Thich Nhat Han
• All Mar­keters Are Liars — Seth Godin
• Black Bod­ies & Quan­tum Cats — Jen­nifer Ouellette
• Pre­sen­ta­tion Zen — Garr Reynolds
• Thinker­toys — Michael Michalko
• Mas­tery — George Leonard
• The War of Art — Steven Pressfield
• Orbit­ing the Giant Hair­ball — Gor­don Mackenzie
• Musi­cophilia — Oliver Sacks
• The Artist’s Way at Work — Mark Bryan, Julia Cameron, & Cather­ine Allen
• Rules For Rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies — Guy Kawasaki
• Free Prize Inside — Seth Godin
• Pur­ple Cow — Seth Godin
• The Dip — Seth Godin
• The 80/20 Prin­ci­ple — Richard Koch
• Ignore Every­body — Hugh MacLeod
• Lat­eral Think­ing — Edward DeBono
• Flow — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Find­ing Flow — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Cre­ativ­ity — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• What­ever You Think, Think the Oppo­site — Paul Arden
• The Cre­ative Habit — Twyla Tharp
• Sim­plic­ity — John Maeda
• The Whole Brain Busi­ness Book — Ned Herrmann
• A Whole New Mind — Dan Pink
• Improv Wis­dom -  Patri­cia Ryan Madison
• Emo­tional Design — Don­ald A. Norman
• The Tip­ping Point — Mal­colm Gladwell
• Blink — Mal­colm Gladwell
• Blue Ocean Strat­egy -  W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne
• Out­liers — Mal­colm Gladwell
• Don’t Think of an Ele­phant — George Lakoff
• The Now Habit — Neil Fiore
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effec­tive Peo­ple — Stephen Covey
• Get­ting Things Done — David Allen
• Influ­ence — Robert Cialdini

The list is designed to explore mul­ti­ple dimen­sions of cre­ativ­ity.  This includes top­ics such as design think­ing, lead­er­ship, time man­age­ment, busi­ness strat­egy, phi­los­o­phy, psy­chol­ogy, soci­ol­ogy, and moti­va­tion — all of which are essen­tial parts of liv­ing a cre­ative life.  I am sure other titles will be added as the year rolls on (The new Seth Godin and Garr Reynolds books will def­i­nitely be on the list).  I am open to your sug­ges­tions too.

I am also going to con­tinue to enhance my Cre­ativ­ity by writ­ing about some of the things I learn from each of these books. This rep­re­sents a way to improve my writ­ing skills as well as to inter­nal­ize the con­cepts con­veyed in each book.  Addi­tion­ally, many of these books con­tain pro­grams, exer­cises, and activ­i­ties designed to enhance cre­ativ­ity, which means that I am going to be spend­ing a con­sid­er­able amount of time being cre­ative too.  Exam­ples include per­form­ing an exer­cise from the book Cre­ativ­ity Work­out by Edward De Bono every day, and writ­ing 3 pages of text by hand each and every morn­ing as pre­scribed in the book The Artist’s Way at Work.

Ide­ally all of this results in new adven­tures, chal­lenges, and accom­plish­ments for me, as I not only develop my cre­ativ­ity, but use it to change my world.