Creativity inspiring ideas + facts to help guide your insights

Enthusiasm is the dynamic force of creativity. The reason why it is vital to creativity is because you won't let yourself do anything that you are not interested in or passionate in.

In order to spearhead creative solutions and ideas your mind has to be stimulated by a fundamental curiosity and interest in the subject. Motivation runs rampant with creativity with enthusiasm.

Focus on eliminating negative thought or self criticism that may impair your ability to develop strong creative skills.

Instead of thinking of a cut-and-dry end goal to certain situations, creative people sit back and examine the problem in different ways before beginning to work.

If you find yourself stagnating by focusing on generic problems, try to re-conceptualize the problem by focusing on a more meaningful angle.

For example: Instead of thinking “What would be something cool to paint?” rather ask, “What sort of painting evokes the feeling of loneliness that we all encounter after a break-up?”

• Being a loner boosts the creative space.
• Creativity has two key elements: originality and usefulness. 
• Personality traits commonly associated with creativity are openness (or receptiveness), self-efficacy (confidence), and autonomy (independence).

Exercise can actually boost creative thinking due to its ability to get the heart pumping and put people in a positive mood.

If you’re stuck in a creative rut and want to take a break, try including exercise. 

1. Give yourself permission to create junk.
2. Create on a schedule. Genius arrives when you show up enough times to get the average ideas out of the way.
3. Finish something. Anything. Stop researching, planning, and preparing to do the work and just do the work.
4. Stop judging your own work. Laugh off your mistakes and continue to produce the thing you love.
5. Hold yourself accountable. Share your work publicly. It will hold you accountable for creating your best work. 

Myth: "Some people are naturally creative and other people aren’t."

It’s true that some people spend more time on creative activities than others. But brain science is clear about the fact that there are creative brain states that can be turned on by some fairly simple actions. This means that everyone can learn how to be more creative.

Inattentional blindness is a perceptual phenomenon. People experience this when they are so focused on one thing that they fail to see something else.

Your susceptibility to inattentional blindness depends on your personality; open people are more likely to see things that others overlook.

Looking at a situation that has already occurred and asking yourself, “What could have happened?” can boost creativity for short periods of time.

According to an analysis by Jeremy Dean:

• Analytical problems are best tackled with thinking about what could have been taken away from the situation.
• Expansive problems benefited most from thinking about what could have been added to the situation.

Some people are primed to be more creative than others.

However, nearly every person is born with some level of creative skill and the majority of our creative thinking abilities are trainable.

While some people are born creative, it is possible to acquire this skill. The right conditions and the right training can make everyone creative, in their own unique way.

As we move from the past where the industrial economy and more recently the knowledge economy had world domination, we reach the conceptual age, where the innovation economy thrives.

The central concept of creativity is that some people are open to examine things from all angles and visualize more possibilities.

The part of our personality that seems to drive our creativity is called openness to experience. Openness best predicts performance on varying thinking tasks, on real-world creative achievements, as well as engagement in daily creative pursuits.

Research found that open people don't just bring a different perspective; they really see things differently.

The research findings suggest that open people's creative tendencies are ingrained in their basic visual perception. Open people may have inherently different experiences to other people.

One of the best ways to develop creativity is to become an expert in that area.

By having a rich understanding of the topic, you will be better able to think of a novel or innovative solutions to problems.

Insecuritiy in your abilities can supress creativity, which is why it is important to build confidence.

Make note of the progress you have made, commend your efforts, and always be on the lookout for ways to reward your creativity.

You won't be able to develop your creative talents if you don't make time for them.

Schedule some time each week to concentrate on some type of creative project.

Brainstorming is a comming technique in both academic and professional settings, but it can also be a powerful tool for developing your creativity.

Start by suspending your judgment and self-criticism, then start writing down related ideas and possible solutions. The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible in a relatively short span of time. Next, focus on clarifying and refining your ideas in order to arrive at the best possible choice.

Creativity is about exploring new ways of solving problems. As our reality changes at an accelerated pace, creativity becomes a more widespread requirement in the workplace. 

Formal or corporate education must begin to encourage, and train, creativity.

Once you have developed some basic creative skills, it is important to continually challenge yourself in order to further advance your abilities.

Look for more difficult approaches, try out new things and avoid always using the same solutions you have used in the past.

In addition to challenging yourself, you also need to create your own opportunities for creativity. This might involve tackling a new project or finding new tools to use in your current projects.

The '"six hats" technique involves looking at a problem from six differing perspectives. By doing this, you can produce more ideas,.

• Black Hat: Use a negative perspective. Which elements of the solution won’t work?
• Blue Hat: Think broadly. What is the best overall solution?
• Green Hat: Think creatively. What are some alternative ideas?
• Red Hat: Look at the situation emotionally. What do your feelings tell you?
• White Hat: Look at the situation objectively. What are the facts?
• Yellow Hat: Use a positive perspective. Which elements of the solution will work?

Isaac Newton mentioned that during his isolation days, he was in the prime for his age for invention and focused on Mathematics and Philosophy more than any other time.

His forced time away from university life allowed his creativity to flourish. The discoveries he made during his time of social distancing would form the foundation of his career for years to come.

• Make space for unstructured creativity. You don’t need to create something useful or beautiful. In fact, you don’t need to produce anything at all.
• Consider each interaction as a creative playground. Let creativity permeate each moment of your life, whether you interact with a person, a piece of content, or a problem you want to solve.
• Write as an act of self-creation. Journaling allows you to not only document but also to shape your mind and thus your life. It’s a powerful way to turn life into a creative adventure.

Find a completely unrelated creative outlet: look for a creative task with lower stakes to help ease you back into things and re-ignite your creativity and motivation.

What are the things in your own life that you enjoy but aren’t necessarily “productive”?

• Role mismatch.
• Too much/too narrow end-goal restriction. 
• Strict ration of resources, including insufficient time.
• Lack of group diversity produces less creative results.
• Discouragement. Too much criticism, endless evaluation and negative comments.
• No positive feedback. Praise and positive feedback are essential for creative people, who thrive on having their ideas impact the lives of others.

There is mounting evidence that personality is malleable, and cognitive training interventions shows promise to increase openness. Travel also broadens the mind.

However, the dark side to the permeability of consciousness that characterises open people is that it is linked to aspects of mental illness, such as being disposed to hallucination. Care should be taken not to see things that are not there.

Some of the key traits include:

• Energy: Creative people tend to possess a great deal of both physical and mental energy. However, they also tend to spend a great deal of time quietly thinking and reflecting.
• Intelligence: Psychologists have long believed that intelligence plays a critical role in creativity. Researchers found that while high IQ was necessary for great creativity, not all people with high IQs are creative. Creative people must be smart, capable of looking at things in fresh, even naïve, ways.
• Discipline: Creative people do not just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike.

The creative process is the act of making new connections between old ideas or recognizing relationships between concepts.

While being creative isn't easy, nearly all great ideas follow a similar 5 step creative process.

Myth: "Creativity means creating works of art."

Creativity is not just about being artistic. There are many ways to be creative, and creating works of art is just one way. Creativity includes many things, for example, cooking, programming, interface design, and problem solving.

The fear that you might make a mistake or fail in your efforts can paralize your progress.

Whenever you find yourself harboring such feelings, remind yourself that mistakes are simply part of the process. 

While you may occasionally stumble on your path to creativity, you will eventually reach your goals.

• Analytical. Before thinking creatively about something, you first have to be able to understand it.
• Open-Minded. Setting aside any assumptions or biases you may have, and look at things in a completely new way.
• Problem Solving. Using your creativity to solve important issues.
• Organization. Being able to structure a plan of action with clear goals and deadlines is vital.
• Communication. Strong written and oral communication skills to communicate your solutions effectively.

Creativity is a choice. If you aspire to find a new truth, solve an old problem, or make the world a better place, you can. To achieve this, establish a "Practice" of consistently generating, sharing, and shipping what you make.

The five key principles in doing this that are:

• Trust yourself to make great art.
• Be generous with your art.
• Be professional.
• Aspire to make change with your art.
• Generate your art consistently.

A state of conscious awareness resulting from living in the moment is not sufficient for creativity to come about.

To be creative, you need to have, or be trained in, the ability to observe, notice, and attend to phenomena that pass your mind’s eye.

We're all a little suspect of our own talent.

Most of us really want to offer the world something of quality, something that the world will consider as good or important. But that's the enemy, because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good. If we look upon the history it will taught us that the world is extremely unreliable critic.

You just have to ask your self 'Do human creativity matters?'

Personalities are not fixed, and people with uncreative personalities can broaden the limited views.

Openness also increases for students who choose to study overseas. But openness has been linked to aspects of mental illness, such as a tendency to hallucinate.

... especially to projects and clients that suck the creativity out of you.

When your mental resources are limited, you need to make sure they’re going to the right tasks. Burnout decimates your motivation, making working on projects you’re uninterested in an agonizing process.

Finding your creative genius is easy: 

• do the work, 
• finish something, 
• get feedback, 
• find ways to improve, 
• show up again tomorrow. 
• Repeat for ten years. Or twenty. Or thirty.

Inspiration only reveals itself after perspiration.

From a new study on creativity in the workplace:

Creativity increased when both positive and negative emotions were running high. Next time you’re in a strong emotional state, try to sit down and focus that energy on creating something.

This myth encourages the belief that creativity is a passive process. It suggests you have to wait and hope that you’ll make a breakthrough.

That Eureka moment is actually the last step in a long, involved process and not the only step. For this to happen, your unconscious mind needs material to work with. You have to put in the hard work of studying and mastering your field and exposing yourself to different perspectives.

The cycle of burnout is especially bad for people who need to be more creative at work . Your ideas were what made people pile more and more work on you in the first place. And it’s easy to fall back into those patterns the second you feel ready to return to work.

Coming back from burnout and rebuilding your creative muscle is as much about understanding and setting limitations as it is getting that spark back.

Creativity is not an innate gift or a talent you're born with. Rather, creativity is a skill and a choice — it can be learned and expanded.

The key to becoming more creative is to get into the habit of shipping or sharing your creative output all the time.

Research shows that with practise, we can all learn to become more creative.

When we hear of people known for their remarkable creativity, it's quick to assume that they are born different from the rest of us. We forget that these creative geniuses often spent years working on projects that did not turn out that well. Many hours of sharpening their thinking or skills finally created something unique.

1. Take an object for example, a rock. For 1 minute try to think as many uses of this rock as you can; weapon, carving tool etc.
2. Get on fancy cap. Tell yourself that it is scientifically proven that this cap will boost my creativity.
3. Do any creative task. 

Two of the primary components of creativity include:

1. Originality: The idea should be something new that is not simply an extension of something else that already exists.
2. Functionality: The idea needs to actually work or possess some degree of usefulness.

Start keeping a journal to follow your creative process and trach the ideas you produce.

A journal is a great way to reflect back on what you have accomplished and look for other possible solutions. This journal can be used to save ideas that can later serve as future inspiration.

For any problem, the more apparent solutions will be discovered first, perhaps because you have encountered it previously. Generating the initial ideas feels very rewarding. Further ideas will come slower and require much more effort. This gives the impression that your creativity is about to drop off a cliff.

In reality, you may have fewer ideas, but those ideas may increase in quality. If you can work through the frustration, you may find a truly innovative idea.

1. Gather new material directly related to your task as well as learning general material by becoming fascinated with a wide range of concepts.
2. Thoroughly work over the materials in your mind.  Examine what you have learned by looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting various ideas together.
3. Step away from the problem. Next, you put the problem completely out of your mind and go do something else that excites you and energizes you.
4. Let your idea return to you. After you have stopped thinking about it, your idea will come back to you with a flash of insight and renewed energy.
5. Shape and develop your idea based on feedback. For any idea to succeed, you must release it out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.

This myth argues that that bigger incentives, monetary or otherwise, will increase motivation and hence increase innovation productivity.

Incentives can help, but often they do more harm than good, as people learn to game the system.

• You need to permit a lot of exploration, including ideas that don’t work out.
• You also need to permit the making of mistakes if you want to foster creativity, because that often ends up leading to new discoveries.

Have you ever noticed how one idea often leads directly to another?

You can take advantage of this by utilizing a "snowball technique" when you are generating ideas for your project.

If the idea isn't appropriate for your current work, set it aside to work on later, or implement it in a future project.

Creativity is the process of generating new ideas, possibilities, or alternatives that result in outcomes that are original and of value. Characteristics:

• It is not a person's characteristic, it is a process.
• Creativity is not just about thinking, but also coming up with an outcome.
• You end up with something unique.
• The outcome is of value to someone.

Creating “psychological” distance may be useful for breaking through a creative block.

Try to imagine your creative task as being disconnected and distant from your current position/location - this may make the problem more accessible and can encourage higher level thinking.

It means producing something novel or original, evaluating, solving problems, whether on paper, on stage, in a laboratory or even in the shower.

• Prioritise Nourishment.  Get quality rest, eat food that will fuel your body's recovery, exercise gently, get fresh air and also nourish your heart.
• Acknowledge Your Part.  Face the real reasons you burned out.

• Build Some Guide Rails.  Establish new boundaries. It's about knowing the difference between the things you’re willing to go the extra mile for when life demands it, and the things that mean enough to you for you to enforce your boundaries.

• Don’t Do it Alone. You don't need to do everything yourself. It’s okay to seek support.

• Give a Damn. Sometimes, being in a bad place can be the perfect opportunity to make some new choices.

How you give yourself self-care is up to you.

It could mean going to bed an hour earlier. Making time for a walk in nature. Going to an art show. Or even just doing something fun.

Creative aliveness consists in reclaiming a larger creative canvas woven into the fabric of our lives.

It starts by asking yourself: what makes you come alive creatively? And how can you inject more creativity into your daily life?

In modern Western and Eastern cultures, creativity is now understood as deeply embedded in the fabric of daily life.

From something that is exclusive to higher-level entities, whether deities or nature itself, it has evolved into an ability anyone can practice at various levels, whether it is to create art or to perform small acts of innovation as part of the ever-changing movement of the world we inhabit.

But, somehow, this creative aliveness is not what most of us experience in our daily lives.

While collaborating with others is essential in a creative process, exceptional creativity needs solitude. Interacting and brainstorming in a group is not as deep creatively as shutting down the world and being completely alone with your own craft. Creative people generally tend to be introverts.

The best creative minds like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein remain flexible and spend a lot of quality time in solitude, while also valuing the ideas from other sources.

1. “Mini-c”: involves personally meaningful ideas and insights that are known only to the self.
2. “Little-c”: Involves mostly everyday thinking and problem-solving. This type of creativity helps people solve everyday problems.
3. “Pro-C”: takes place among professionals who are skilled and creative in their respective fields. These individuals are creative in their vocation or profession.
4. “Big-C”: involves creating works and ideas that are considered great in a particular field. often leads to world-changing creations such as medical innovations, technological advances ect.

Myth: "Some people are left-brained (analytical) and others are right-brained (creative)."

When people say that they are left-brained or right-brained, it doesn't mean that only that part of the brain is working; they are referring to how they think, learn or process information.

Creativity doesn't only work in one half of the brain. There is a bundle of nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres.

• Long-term procrastination and struggling with basic work
• Constant exhaustion and inexplicable stress
• Unhealthy comparisons and self-doubt
• Unbalanced content consumption
• Morning dread
• Harmful habits and unusual irritability

With all these, it is important to remember two things:

1. There is a difference between creative block and creative burnout. The former does not share the same symptoms with the latter.
2. Many of these symptoms are associated with mental health conditions so it's best to talk to a professional.

In reality, creativity is a team sport.

The lone genius myth is a stereotype and it’s unhelpful because it suggests the route to innovation is to cut oneself off from colleagues and collaboration. You need a modest amount of intelligence to be creative, but extremely high IQ is neither sufficient nor necessary for being an innovator.

This is a persistent myth, that the best way to come up with ideas together is to embark on a classic brainstorming session. But people need time to work alone first, and only then should the collaborative process begin.

Group brainstorming is an effective way to share and merge people’s ideas and solutions, but it’s the wrong way to come up with ideas in the first place, and it certainly shouldn’t be the end of the creative process.

There is a big misconception that ideas generate like a flash.

Researches show that such insights are actually the culminating result of prior hard work on a problem. It's like our brain is connecting the dots to form an image.

There's a long-standing myth about intellectual property - the idea that a creative idea is proprietary to the person who thought of it.

But history and empirical research revealed that new ideas are actually combinations of older ideas and that sharing those helps generate more innovation.

People often think that striking creative works are just done by a single person, ignoring supportive work and collaborative preliminary effort.

Creativity is often a team effort, and recent research into creative teams can help leaders build the perfect creative troupe.

Believers in this myth want everyone to get along and work happily together to foster innovations.

However, many of the most creative companies have found ways to structure dissent and conflict into their process to better push their employees' creative limits.

It states that constraints hinder a person from becoming fully innovative, compared to people that have "unlimited" resources.

Research shows, however, that creativity loves constraints. So maybe companies should try doing the opposite: intentionally apply limits to leverage the creative potential of their people.

The next time you approuch a problem, try looking for a variety of solutions. Instead of simply going with the first idea you have, take the time to think of other possible ways to approach the situation.

This simple activity is a great way to build both your problem-solving and creative thinking skills.

The key to building a creative practice for yourself is to be consistent in generating and shipping your art — whatever form it may take. Certainly, good processes help you generate professional-quality outputs, but consistency really is the key to moving forward. Generating art is something that you do, not merely something that you speak about.

The second set of five key principles which underpin this idea are:

• Make bold assertions.
• Earn your skills by consistently producing.
• Welcome and harness your constraints.
• Watch for creative ideas.
• Be unquenchable.

• Engage in art therapy: paint or start a journal.
• Create a peace collage. Include images that make you feel relaxed and at ease. 
• Take a walk with the sole intention of photographing beautiful things that make you feel at peace.
• Write a blog post about what gives you peace of mind.

The main idea to the concept of creativity is that some people see more possibilities than others.

• One way creativity is measured is by using divergent thinking tasks where you are required to produce as many uses as possible from simple objects.
• The aspect of our personality that appears to direct our creativity is called 'openness to experience.'
• The curiosity of people high in openness may lead them to see more than the average person.

One common roadlblock to devoloping creativity is the sense that curiosity is an indulgence.

Rather than reprimanding yourself, reward yourself when you are curious about something. Give yourself the opportunity to explore new topics. 

While rewarding yourself is important, it is also important to develop intrinsic motivation. Sometimes, the true reward of creativity is the process itself, not the product.

Creativity can often be seen in a few different situations:

• People who seem stimulating, interesting, and have a variety of unusual thoughts.
• People who perceive the world with a fresh perspective, have insightful ideas and make important personal discoveries. These individuals make creative discoveries that are generally known only to them.
• People who make great creative achievements that become known to the entire world. Inventors and artists such as Thomas Edison and Pablo Picasso would fall into this category.

1. Creativity is only needed at the top. The truth is that creativity applies to everything. The executives are not only the ones who experience conflict, everyone does.
2. People are creative (or not) based on what they do. But creativity does not only appear for artistic people. It manifests in every field.
3. Creativity can’t be developed. But creativity is not born, it is developed by continuous practice and focus.
4. "Creativity isn’t my job". In reality, creativity must be applied at all levels. Everyone could benefit from being creative.
5. _"My technical skills and experience are enough." _The truth is those skills and experiences could be enhanced with creativity. Don't just rely on what you know, be creative in applying it.

When it comes to creative output, external gains don't really work. In fact, the opposite may be true.

Creativity that is driven by internal ambition and reward (the simple joy and satisfaction of doing something) tends to lead to more original and imaginative end results than work fueled by the promise of external gains, such as money or public recognition.

• Creativity, as a power belonging to an individual, doesn't go back very far. The first recorded usage of the word creativity came from the Oxford English Dictionary in the 17th century: 'In Creation, we have God and his Creativity.'
• In the 17th and 18th centuries, the creative power was thought of as divine. The idea of a secular creative ability in the imaginative arts didn't appear until the Romantic Era when the poet William Wordsworth addressed the painter and critic Benjamin Haydon: 'Creative art...demands the service of a mind and heart.'
• In the 1970s, writers reflected on the newness of the concept of creativity, that it was valuable and in need of encouragement.
• Before WWII, the word 'creativity' was then expressed as genius, originality, productivity, or even intelligence.

A lot of people think that creative ability is a trait inherent in one’s heritage or genes. In fact, there is no such thing as a creative breed.

Creative minds are not born, they are made. People who have confidence in themselves and work the hardest on a problem are the ones most likely to come up with a creative solution.

When it comes to building your creative skills, you need to be willing to take risks in order to advance your abilities.

While your efforts may not lead to success every time, you will still be boosting your creative talents and building skills that will serve you well in the future.

Never expect creativity to just happen.

Look for new sources of inspiration that will give you fresh ideas and motivate you to generate unique answers to questions. 

Read a book, visit a museum, listen to your favorite music or engage in a lively debate with a friend. Utilize whatever strategy or technique works best for you.

Many companies rely on a technical expert or team of experts to generate a stream of creative ideas. Harder problems call for even more knowledgeable experts.

Instead, research suggests that particularly tough problems often require the perspective of an outsider or someone not limited by the knowledge of why something can’t be done.

Many people talk about brainstorming, as group discussions to explore every possible approach, no matter how far-out, to yield creative breakthroughs.

But there is actually no proof that just "throwing ideas around" consistently produces innovative breakthroughs.

It states that once we have a new idea, the work is done.

But the world won’t beat a path to our door or even find the door to an idea for a better mousetrap unless we communicate it, market it and find the right customers.

Research suggests placing self-imposed limitations can boost creativity.

It forces your brain to come up with creative solutions to finish a project around the parameters you’ve set.

Research found that open people don't just bring a different perspective, they really see things differently.

A visual perception phenomenon is called binocular rivalry - where two different images are presented to each eye simultaneously, such as a red patch to the right eye and a green to the left eye. The observer will flip between seeing one patch, then the other. Open people see both images at once, creating a fused or scrambled image.

Creativity isn’t the preserve of one side of the brain, and it isn’t a talent confined to people with a special kind of brain. If you’re human and you’ve got a brain, you’re capable of being creative.

It’s true that the two brain hemispheres do function differently, but crucially they are joined by massive bundles of nerve fibers and most mental functions involve the two hemispheres working together.

Our expectations of how creativity should look like block us. Creative inspiration is all around us, but we don’t see it because we've grown up being taught to look for it in specific places.

For example, if you need to write a chapter of a book, instead of sitting down and looking at a black page for hours on end, break it up into tiny increments and set tight deadlines (such as 250 words every 20 minutes).

Not only will you not have time to become self-critical, but once you start working it’s much easier to keep going.

Daydreaming and incubation are most effective on a project you’ve already invested a lot of creative effort into.

Incorporating breaks into your work-flow can increase your chance to come up with creative solutions to problems.

Burnout occurs when job demands consistently outweigh the resources available. The first thing you need to do is to set proper limits.

When you limit your time spent on specific tasks, you give yourself permission to make choices. Instead of fighting perfectionism for example, you learn to stop when things are good enough.

The biggest creative canvas is our own life. The possibilities are practically infinite, the tools at our disposal are many, and each person we connect with opens the door to a potential creative collaboration. However, life can get so busy we end up squeezing our creativity into a tiny canvas — small, pre-defined spaces such as an art class or a brainstorming session.

Instead of constraining our creativity to these bounded containers, creative aliveness elevates our day-to-day experiences by considering each moment as an opportunity for curiosity and innovation.

A creative mind is:

• Connected. A creative mind is connected to people who stimulate their imagination, to networks that foster collaboration, and to sources of content that provide them with interesting information.
• Curious. Curious minds tend to question the obvious, consider alternative answers, and consistently dig one level deeper to get to the core of how things work.
• Courageous. While creativity doesn’t have to be grandiose, it requires stepping into the unknown and sometimes taking bold risks with limited knowledge of the potential outcomes.

The first step to fully devote yourself to developing your creative abilities. 

Do not put off your efforts. Set goals, enlist the help of others, and put time aside each day to develop your skills.

A mind map is a great way to connect ideas and look for innocative anwsers to questions.

Create a mind map by writing down a central topic or word. Next, link related terms or ideas around the central word. While similar to brainstorming, this technique allows for branching ideas and offers a very visual way of seeing how these ideas are linked.

As you start to develop a new project, create a flow chart to track the presentation of the project from start to finish. A flow chart can help you visualize the final product, eliminate potential problems and create unique solutions.

• Artistic Creativity. You don't have to be an artist for your work to have an artistic element. For example: Composing a new fundraising script for volunteers or devising a lesson plan that will engage students.
• Creative Problem-Solving. For example: Coming up with new procedures to improve quality or suggesting a way to improve customer service.
• Creativity in STEM. For example: Constructing a research model to test a hypothesis or devising a computer program to automate a billing process.

Research suggests that reading/experiencing something absurd or surreal can help boost pattern recognition and creative thinking.