Creative Ideas - Six Ways To Have Them

Would you like more creative ideas? Maybe you want to exercise more creativity in solving problems at home, or in your work. Perhaps you just like the thought of having the most interesting ideas the next time you are with a group of friends. Either way, you can quickly become a font of creative ideas by using a few simple techniques. Start with the following.

1. Look at opposites.

What if instead of being bad for your teeth, candy was actually good for them? Could someone develop a candy that prevented tooth decay and perhaps even strengthened teeth? What if exercise wasn't necessary to strengthen muscles? Could the muscle-building process that takes place from exercise be duplicated without the exercise?

2. Make things bigger or smaller.

Look at things and ask how they could be bigger or smaller and what the advantages would be. As an example, how could a refrigerator be smaller, and how would that be useful? Perhaps there could be a small, high-power, countertop drink cooler. Put your can of soda in it for a minute, and it's chilled.

3. Challenge assumptions.

People assume that poverty causes higher crime rates. Of course there are places where there is more poverty and less crime. What are the possible explanations, and how could these hypothesis be tested?

4. Mentally move things around.

Looking at the exhaust fan in the bathroom and imagining it over the shower, immediately suggests that there might be less steaming up of the mirror if the fan was closer to the source of the steam.

5. Take things to extremes.

Nothing but action scenes would be too much action in a movie, right? This suggests the problem of how to have the right amount - of action and other elements. Could a study of past movies, measuring their financial success in relation to various elements in the movie be used to determine an "ideal" formula for a movie?

6. Follow silly ideas to see where they go.

I was sitting here wondering what would happen if two strong gusts of wind going in opposite directions met. Would they cancel each other out, cause massive turbulence, or what? This triggered the thought of a car with high-powered fans that send a sheet of air from the front end out to the roof above the windshield. Could this create a virtual surface that would make the car more aerodynamic?