Creativity is unruly and sometimes we need quick brainstorm help.
Occasionally ideas flow easily like a roster of new Hallmark Christmas movies (one year they released 26 new holiday films, that’s just unreal).
Because that’s not usually the case, it mostly feels like ideas run away from you, lock themselves in a treasure chest, and hide at the bottom of the ocean.
On top of this, you’re probably working on creative challenges all day — on a deadline. It’s common to have only a few hours or minutes to come up with creative solutions
Then, what can you do when you’re out of time and asked to deliver the moon?
Here are 3 ways to help speed up your creative process and give yourself some quick brainstorm help.
Editor’s Note: One important point of caution here… Great ideas take time. If a client or employer asks you to create winning ideas regularly with unreasonable timelines, pushback is warranted. Protect your peace.
1. More Bad Ideas
One of the quickest ways to warm up your internal idea engine is to eliminate any feeling of pressure through bad ideas. Requiring bad ideas as a first step improves every creative process.
Bad ideas typically fall into two categories: the obvious and the absurd. Making a list of obvious and absurd solutions to your creative challenge will put you in a much better headspace and better equip you to form new ideas through these connections.
Also, these lists of obvious or absurd ideas will contain your winning solution, and sometimes, they are a great shortcut to jumpstart inspiration.
Time to execute: 5 minutes
2. Constraints as a Canvas
We often have a new assignment, client request, or campaign with very specific constraints. Questioning these limits is at the heart of creativity.
Constraint-led ideation is the process of listing all of a project’s constraints and then questioning each limitation.
Not all constraints are negotiable, but there’s usually something you can question. The process of going through each perceived barrier will do two things: 1) get your creative brain moving in the right direction and 2) define the canvas of what you have to work with.
When I’m speaker prepping for one of my creativity keynote talks, I start with the broad talk I’m going to give like “More Bad Ideas” or “Rethink Brainstorming” and I think through the limitations of the event, the audience, their day jobs, etc. I ask “how can I customize this talk to this audience’s specific limitations, interests, and rules?”
Work through every constraint and ask how to challenge, skip, adapt to, or embrace them. These collective decisions make your canvas. Now create the best solution you can within this new rule set.
Time to execute: 10 minutes
3. Creative Lists For Quick Brainstorm Help
Start making lists of everything you love. This will become a huge resource to pull from when you’re up against a deadline.
Here are some lists I keep (several for over a decade):
- Favorite words
- Design I love
- Great art
- Fiction book ideas (these are mostly from dreams)
- Non-fiction book ideas
- Amazing things my partner says
- Stories from my life (collecting personal anecdotes)
- Interesting stories I hear (collecting random anecdotes)
- Bad ideas (counterintuitive creativity anecdotes)
- Engagement templates (social inspo)
- My top drawer list (got this from Nicole D’Alonzo, a list of wins and support)
Starting this habit is easy. Pick one list idea that brings you joy and start adding to it today. Add to it the next time you see a good example of that thing. Rinse and repeat.
I update some of these lists every week, some almost daily, and some once a month or less often. Many have years of content. A few over a decade. The longer you keep these lists, the more valuable and special they become.
I started my bad ideas list 10 years ago and it’s been an essential resource while writing my new book, The Case for More Bad Ideas.
If you often have to solve a specific creative challenge on a deadline, consider a list of inspirations or examples that would help you in those moments.
Time to execute: A few minutes each week
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Try these tactics when the world gives you a challenging timeline. You don’t always need quick brainstorm help. Often it makes more sense to spend more time on a creative challenge, but alas that’s not always possible.
Also, don’t feel bad when your ideas are a little less shiny than you’d like. Keep going, take breaks, and when all else fails, revert to joy.