Creativity is a muscle

I often come upon the idea that creative processes are exempt from interrogation and refinement. The argument goes that the act of creation is inherently personal, varying wildly from person to person, and attempts to apply structure or process to creativity are doomed to failure (and destined to scare away whatever fickle “muse” we depend upon for our ideas).

I disagree with this viewpoint and dislike it for its role in nudging people away from the introspection required to become more creative. I am fairly prolific in my creative output and have come to the conclusion that creative processes are processes like any other—they can be interrogated, reflected upon, and made to be more fruitful, predictable and consistent.

Creativity is a muscle, and we can strengthen it through select exercises:

• Ask “how does X apply in Y?”: New ideas usually arise from creating new interactions between existing ideas (what Arthur Koestler calls “mental cross-fertilisation between different disciplines”).
• Curate your information diet. Creative output is a product of creative input. It’s important to curate your information diet and regularly consume the necessary building blocks for creativity: esoteric and seemingly unrelated material from a broad range of different disciplines.
• Aim to be prolific. The more we create, the easier successive creation becomes. As Gary Provost writes in 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing, “just as high water pressure makes more water flow faster, the greater weight of material you have gathered will make the words flow faster.” Ceaseless creation is the surest way to—eventually—create remarkable things. If you want to become great, first aim for prolific.
• Become systematic about research. We can’t control creativity directly, but we can control the research that fuels creativity. As Steven Johnson shares in Where Good Ideas From, “the trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation. The trick is to get more parts on the table.”
• Finish things. See projects to fruition and learn from the experience and reception. Avoid the tendency to abandon projects when you lose motivation, and instead see them through to the bitter end, closing the feedback loop even if they turn out disappointing. Think of it as getting your reps in, a necessary stepping stone to something greater and more inspiring in the future.