How to think creatively

Are you a convergent or a divergent thinker?
Are you perhaps a bit of both?
Divergent thinkers find many solutions.
Convergent thinkers find the best solution.
Both are strategies to think more creatively.
Both draw on experience, knowledge, hunches.
For example, what’s the best use of a brick?
To smash windows or build homes?
That’s convergent thinking.
Now think of other ways to use bricks.
Paper weights. Door stops. Garden walls.
That’s divergent thinking.
Both are important. They fuel creativity.
Blue sky problem solvers generate solutions.
Many ideas may be whacky or unrealistic.
Your absurd idea may spark a brilliant one.
There is one rule in this kind of problem solving: No ideas are rejected or their creator’s chastized.
Such behavior discourages creative thinking.
Generate many solutions, whacky or weird.
Then pick the solution most likely to succeed.
If you have more than one, set priorities.
Try the most likely one first.
If it doesn’t work, go to Plan B.
Next week we’ll discuss another strategy.
It’s Ken Blum’s creative thinking formula.
You don’t want to miss this.

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