If I asked you to pick up a pencil and free-write about an experience that caught your interest in the past day or so, chances are, it would take you a while to come up with an idea.
How many of our daily experiences do we remember?
Already this morning, I’ve taken my dog for a walk around the park. I popped out to Trader Joe’s on a quick errand and then went for a run around our local rose garden. If you asked me before I pushed myself to remember, I’d say, “Nothing much happened this morning.”
However, in point of fact, I had a mildly embarrassing moment when my dog snapped at a neighbor’s dog who was running around off leash. The Trader Joe’s clerk asked me my cat’s breed (I was buying litter), and when I told him she is black with a white patch, he said, “Oh, a tuxedo cat.” He insisted this was an official breed, which left me wanting to consult Google. On my run, a kind crosswalk guard helped me across a street. Also, I observed a man training his puppy. The puppy tugged, bounded, and every once in a while, sat, while they walked around the rose garden.
Many of the people I met could inspire character ideas. The sounds, smells, or colors might provide visual inspiration for a room remodel. Some of the interactions might provide metaphors to aid my problem solving. For instance: How could picturing my role as a helpful crossing guard provide new perspective on this situation? The truth is, life brims with material that lays the foundation for creativity to strike.
Unfortunately, we often miss the rich material our lives offer.
The first task of the Attic is to collect ideas and information from your world. If you’re wondering what the Attic is, here’s the short description. The Attic is one mental room we enter during the creative process. In the Attic, we gather ideas, sort them, and identify a creative question or challenge statement that points our creative problem solving in the right direction. If you’d like the longer description of the Attic, or want to know more about the full set of mental rooms, read more here.
Like much in the creative thinking process, collecting happens whether you try to or not. However, if we don’t have an intentional collection practice, there are a number of drawbacks.
What happens when we don’t intentionally collect moments from our lives?
1. We end up with a collection of the wrong things.
Science tells us that negative thoughts and experiences are like velcro. They stick easily. Positive experiences are more like teflon. They are strong, but slippery. Neurologists tell us that in order to impress a positive memory into our memory, we must focus on it for at least 15 seconds. We need proactive ideas and a positive outlook to fuel our creativity, and thus, we need to be intentional about what we mentally collect.
2. We end up with mental clutter.
If we rely on memory to serve as our mental collection bin, we’re forced to sort through everything in order to find the moments that might be useful. Like any unappealing junk drawer, we tend to shut the clutter out of sight rather than utilize it in any meaningful way.
3. We lose ideas or memories that could be highly useful to our projects.
Our brains aren’t computers, and they don’t have a reliable search function. Worse, if we ignore the ideas that pop into our heads at odd moments, our subconscious is likely to determine that we don’t care about those ideas. Then, those thoughts become harder to access a second time.
So, how can we be intentional about our collection practice?
1. Start where you are.
The harder you make collection, the less likely you’ll regularly do it. So, go with the first strategy that comes to mind–it’s likely be an approach that comes naturally to you. Maybe you’ll take photos, or write in a journal, or set a timer for a certain time each day when you’ll list some thoughts in Evernote that you don’t want to forget.
2. Make collecting convenient.
Choose an app that automatically collects your photos into an album. Find a sketchbook that’s small enough to fit in a bag you regularly carry. Come up with three standard questions to answer in your journal so you don’t have to start with a blank page every day.
3. Give yourself a boost.
Starting a new habit can be difficult. Consider your style. (And if you haven’t taken the creativity styles quiz, there’s no time like the present!) Given your strengths, what will give your collecting habit a boost? A reminder alarm on your phone? A periodic check-in with a friend? A block of fifteen minutes on your daily calendar? A colorful post-it tracking system for your office wall?
Do you want to make sure that when you need it, creativity will strike? If so, you need a collection action plan. Choose a next action right now, and if you’d like, share it in the comments below. Where might you start? If you need some extra inspiration, you might enjoy reading about my Thoughtbox, the simple system I’ve created for my own collection process.
