ThisMonth's Mind Flexors
Mind Flexors
are conciseexercises to practice the six characteristics
listed below.If you put on ice skates and skate a little bit each day
for the next year,you will definitely be better on ice at year's end. Research
and commonsense tells us that regular flexing of your creativity capacity
will makeit easier for you to be creative on demand.
Mind Flexors
are designedto be fun and to exercise your mind. You don't have to do all
of them toincrease your creativity, but practice never hurts! Some people
who haveattended TMI's Unbind Your Mind creativity class share ideas across
e-mailor do the exercises with colleagues or family.
There are no
correctanswers to the Mind Flexors. Give yourself permission to think of
as unusualanswers as possible.
- Write as many words as
you can beginningwith the letter 'n." Don't worry about spelling the words
correctly, butdon't use variations of a single word, including plurals.
- You have to remember to pick up somegroceries
(bananas, ketchup, orange juice, potatoes, avocado, raisins,apples, canned
beans, and mushroom soup) on your way home from work tonight.You don't want
to write the groceries down. What's the most effective wayyou can remember
this list?
- Choose an article. It has suddenlybeen imbued
with magical power so that it impacts wisdom. Hold the objectup to your ear
and listen to what the article says.
- Design a new holiday for your country.It falls
in the middle of summer during a month where you normally don'thave a holiday.
What is its name, how do you celebrate it, and why hasit rapidly become the
most favorite holiday of all?
- You have a tell a very productiveworker to
arrive earlier to work. You do not want to demotivate this worker.What is
the best way you can come up with to get him to come in earlier—withoutdemotivating
him.
- It's April Fools Day. Make up threegreat April
Fools jokes that you could use and probably get away with.
- Redesign the traditional hospitalgown with
the slit up the back. You want the body to be easily accessibleunder the
gown, but at the same time, you want something that is more sophisticatedthan
the current style.
Janelle Barlow,
Author
Mind Flexors, I
andII
You are free to use these Mind Flexors for your
personaluse. With any publication or duplication in a document, electronic
or otherwise,full credit must be given to Janelle Barlow, TMI, and permission
must beobtained.
UnbindYour Mind - Six Characteristics
People who rank high in the following six characteristics tend
tobe more creative:
Fluency of ideas: Themore creative you are, the more ideas you
can produce in a given time.If your brain can rapidly produce 30 ideas, it
does not matter if mostof them are of little value. You say that one good
idea is better than30 bad or mediocre ideas, but it can take 30 ideas to
produce one goodidea. Most people do not produce their best ideas until their
brain hassorted through some average ideas. It is almost as if the brain
needs toget warmed up in the same way athletes put their bodies through warm-upperiods
before competition or training.
Withholding of judgment:If you delay your judgments, you will get
more high quality ideas whenyou are brainstorming. When you judge, you are
looking for what does notwork or fit, rather than possibilities. It is within
possibilities thatcreativity sits.
Tolerance of ambiguity:Tolerance of ambiguity is the ability to
live in a universe where thereare no right or wrong answers, where ideas
or thoughts are vague and yetunformed. There are two sides to this ability:
willingness to see bothsides of the same coin, and willingness to stay in
the questioning phasebefore rushing to an answer.
Flexibility and imagination:Creativity demands flexible thinking,
almost a childlike attitude of wonderment.To be creative, you must operate
as if the world can be as you create it.
Concentration: This isthe ability to stay focused on a subject,
even while you feel frustratedor bored. It is the ability to ignore distractions
while trying to solveproblems or accomplish something. Concentration and
determination are criticalaspects of creativity.
Preference for disorder:Creative people tend to like disorder.
This does not necessarily mean mess.One of the stereotypes of creative people
is that of the messy inventoror writer with piles of paper everywhere. Mess
has little to do with creativity.Disorder is something else. Preference for
disorder refers to asymmetryin design, nonlinear thinking, or shaking up
the normal order.
Previous "Mind Flexor"
selections:
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
#13
#14
#15
#16
#17
#18
#19
#20
#21
#22
#23
#24
#25
#26
#27
#28
#29
#30
#31
#32
#33
#34
#35
#36
#37
#38
#39
#40
#41
#42
#43
#44
#45
#46
#47
#48
#49
#50
#51
#52
#53
#54
#55
#56
#57
#58
#59
#60
#61
#62
#63
#64
#65
| TMI, USA has a complete
book of365 Mind Flexors exercises available. It is authored by Janelle Barlow,Ph.D.
and is titled, Mind Flexors.We
will also publish here new (never before seen!) Mind Flexors--sevenat a time
each month. We invite our readers to add their own creativityto this list,
and we'll credit you with your contribution. We'll also listyour creative
answers on this page if you send them to us. |
CreativityTraining
Program
UnbindYour
Mind & Mind Flexors Publications
|
