There's a lot of talk out there about how being creative is about breaking free - from assumptions, from rules and from the "way things are done".
People recommend everything from taking a walk in nature, to crazy improv sessions, to swimming in giant ball pools wearing clown shoes as flippers. (Ok, I made that last one up.)
The thought is that creativity happens best without limits, when thinkers are completely free to do whatever pops into their head.
But what if they're wrong? What if it's easier to come up with creative ideas not by escaping from restrictions... but from adding them?
Last week, Liz Strauss of Successful Blog challenged her readers to sum up their life wisdom - in only 25 words.
(25 words! Yeah, I know. How do you compress an entire life lesson into a standard-sized sentence? It sounds impossible!)
Yet it wasn't. When I sat down to tackle her challenge, I found that I could compress an entire stream of thought into exactly 25 words. And I wasn't the only one! Just take a look at the 49 completely different (and all fabulous) responses to Liz's challenge.
Who would think that 25 words could be arranged so many different ways?
Well, basically anyone who likes sonnets - since the rules for sonnets are so strict!
A sonnet must not only have 14 lines in iambic pentameter, it also needs a specific a-b-a-b/c-d-c-d/e-f-e-f/g-g rhyme scheme and a conflict of sorts in the opening stanzas and a resolution in the closing ones.
Sounds really limiting, doesn't it?
Yet Shakespeare wrote 154 of them, each unique and compelling. (You can read them all here if you don't believe me!)
The fact is, being creative without limits can be a lot of fun. (Who doesn't love a good ball crawl?)
But when someone has to be creative within limits, that's when their ingenuity really begins to shine.
Katie -- what a wonderful site of wit and wisdom! No wonder possibilities splash across every post! Thanks for the inspiration! Ellen
Posted by: Ellen Weber | July 23, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Thanks, Katie, for this excellent post. Constraints are a driver of innovation, and you have demonstrated this well. In the business world, people are constantly challenged by lack of time and lack of money to do what they want. These restrictions can actually expand their possibilities...if they let them.
Posted by: Drew Boyd | July 23, 2008 at 08:23 PM
Great post, Katie. We definitely need the BOX in order to think OUT of it. Art has some other forms of "restricted creativity", like Haiku and the Indian musical Raga.
Posted by: Ranen Carmel | July 26, 2008 at 02:36 PM
Thanks, Katie. I couldn't agree more. Here is a post from SIT's innovation blog that has a few examples of the "Constraints enhance Creativity" idea.
http://www.sitsite.com/blog/2008/07/communivation-innovation-for-the-community/
Hope you'll like it.
Ciao,
Michal
Posted by: Michalee | July 29, 2008 at 04:15 AM