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(i) Start Here!
(ii) Creativity
More: See all creativity posts
(iii) Creative Thinking and Innovation
(v) Procrastination vs. Marination
(iv) Neuroscience and Psychology
The ‘Third Layer’ process itself
The Creative Foundation and Creativity Pyramid
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The Creativity Ladder, safety and primordial soup
Why is it important we know our unique Creativity Ladders?
Because we are radically different people creatively/artistically/problem-solvingly when we’re at a layer 1 vs a layer 6. (Not to mention vs the surprisingly elusive layers 7, 8 or 9.)
Because, as the ladder shows, if we push creativity when we’re below a 0, we can — and often do — lasting damage. To our own creativity and mental health, but also to others’ creativity without us realizing.
Why go horizontal before you go vertical
So go ahead and get creative. Get a second opinion. Or a third. Come up with five horizontally equal ways to ask your boss for a raise, before you pick one to go vertical on. If you’re young, it could make the difference of a million dollars over your lifetime.
Writing happens in three layers
Before you write, you need to think. And after you write is when you edit. Keep each layer distinctly separate — like a chocolate layer cake, perhaps — and writing will go faster and smoother.
Run the tap before you drink the beer
We need to generate creativity in order to write. Creativity creates something out of nothing. And nothing is a terrible place to start feeling generative.
Capital-W Writing, writing, and pre-writing
Capital-W writing is scary. Pre-write before you Write, using techniques from improv.
Ten Rules for Third Layer Creativity
Our brains are wired for survival, not creativity. Survival brain is what keeps us going; what we create with it makes it worthwhile. But we need a way to communicate with our survival brain, to let it know creativity isn’t going to hurt us.
Mathematical idioms, unspoken quantification and creativity
We quantify the creatively unquantifiable all the time without realizing it. A list of how we use language to put ourselves on the map.
Writing: Self-awareness vs rumination
Writing can improve your mental health, but the writing should elicit self-awareness (not rumination).
The mathematics of joy
Start a list.
Write down 3-5 things that bring you joy.
Over the next week or two, continue to add things until you reach 100.
Start where you are. Start where they are.
Creativity is hard. So start where you are, not where the world expects you to be.