Creativity loves Constraints

In a presentation at Stanford University Marisa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo, said that ‘Creativity loves constraints’ as too much freedom can make creativity unfocused. Writing this blog I certainly find that there is truth in her statement. The white blank page can be very intimidating and sometimes it helps just to write down a sentence to have something to start working with.

In her book ‘A Crash Course on Creativity’ Tina Seelig describes how time restriction can be used to open up creativity. She mentioned how she, unconsciously, used the tool of creative procrastination when writing her book. The less time she had available to write her book the more focused her mind became and this helped her to accumulate enough creative tension to take action and put her ideas on paper.

Many people find deadlines very helpful for getting projects done. If there isn’t an externally imposed deadline it often helps to set a firm deadline for yourself and write it in your diary. It’s important that you really commit to keeping to your deadline. In order to get into good writing habits for this blog I’m using this tool otherwise I could easily continue endlessly doing just a little bit more research before I feel I have enough information to write anything at all.

A great example on a constraint put on creativity is the six word memoir. Apparently Ernest Hemmingway is reported to have made a wager with other writers that he could write a story in six words. This was his story: “For sale: baby shoes, never used”. Only a few words but they are very expressive and emotive.

At sixwordmemoirs SMITH magazine runs a whole website where people can publish their six word memoirs. Three of my favourites from this website are:

-      “Look out! Happiness is contagious”

-      “I need a Mental Health Day”

-      “Time flies when you are having kids”

       

Tina Seelig mentions in her book that she uses the six word memoirs methods to stimulate her students’ imagination on the first day of their creativity course when they are asked to introduce themselves to the group.

I thought this would be a really good exercise to practice a little bit of creativity. I wondered how I could sum up myself in only six words. Here is my six word memoir: “Heart wide open capturing life’s wonders”.

Now it’s your turn to flex your creative muscle. Set a timer to 10 or 15 minutes and imagine how you would like to be introduced in 6 words to your guests on your 100^th Birthday Celebration.