Here you go again: You face a creative challenge; you desperately need ideas on how to possibly resolve it. You think hard about ideas, but the harder you think, the more blocked you become... But have you ever realized that your everyday life is overflowing with creative inspirations? You can easily turn these cues into ideas for your challenge, provided you’re open and receptive to all those creative stimuli that wait for you at every corner. Today, let me share with you ten everyday moments to inspire ideas for a creative challenge you need to resolve.

How to get prepared for creative inspiration?

To get started in the first place, have a creative challenge (related to your work or life) that you want to work on. Write down this challenge into your notebook in the form of an action question that starts with the words “How to”. For example, your challenge could read “How to create a smashing marketing campaign for the holiday season?”

Then, undergo everyday activities with an open, receptive mind. Notice any stimuli that you encounter during the day; write down this associative input into your notebook, and aim to fill at least one page with it. Associative input may be words or —even better— full sentences, slogans, taglines, lyrics in a song, quotations, as well as photos and other visual cues.

Finally, review all your associative input that you’ve collected throughout the day, and ask: How may this relate to my challenge? How may I use this input as a springboard to launch ideas for my creative challenge? Then, jot down all ideas that come to your mind. Suspend your critical judgment and focus on letting all ideas flow onto your paper.

How to get everyday inspirations for ideas?

Here are 10 ways to use everyday moments and situations to collect associative input for ideation. Don’t forget to make notes about what you experience, which makes it easy to turn associations into ideas for your challenge:

1. Soak in advertisements on your daily commute: Consciously tune into ads and slogans that vie for your attention. Don’t be tempted into consumption by the marketing noise, but instead use their bold taglines and unusual visual cues for creative inspiration.
2. Go to see a movie: Go to your favorite cinema and watch a movie, but do it with an active, open mind. Focus on unusual story plots, funny or emotional moments, great dialogue lines, unusual tools or tactics, and anything else that you find noteworthy. All those associations may trigger ideas for your challenge.
3. Zap through the TV: Press the remote control and zap through the channels for 15 minutes. Whenever you see something interesting, stop and attentively listen in, then zap on as soon as you feel bored. Surfing through the channels quickly gives you a wide range of diverse associative stimuli.
4. Tune into the radio: Have the radio play in the background during work. Passively listen to the radio. Whenever you hear a striking lyrics line in a song or an engaging comment by the radio show host, then jot it down.
5. Meet a friend for a coffee or drink: Move beyond the usual chit-chat when you meet a good friend the next time. Ask your friends to share their ideas for your challenge. Even better, ask them to share with you stories — for example, the weirdest situation that they have experienced in their life. Note down all details of the experience. And of course, be ready to share your story first.
6. Eavesdrop on conversations: You sit in a public space, and some “loudspeakers” make everyone unwillingly part of their private conversation. Don’t be shy and listen in when you’re desperate for an idea. How may the things they’re talking or bragging about help you to resolve your challenge?
7. Surf the Internet or social media sites: Nowadays, we’re drowning in information shared in the Internet or via social media. Dive into the flood of information for half an hour when you need creative stimuli. Do it with the intent to soak up as many visual and verbal stimuli as possible, and make (mental) notes of interesting things you see as you browse through our modern media mania.
8. Browse through the newspaper or a pile of magazines: Here you follow a similar approach as before. However, instead of tapping on digital content on a device, you flip through paper prints of the analog world.
9. Review your old notebooks: Counterintuitively, a great way to get new ideas for a new challenge is to go through your old thoughts and ideas in your old notebooks. “Everything is connected to everything else”, as Leonardo da Vinci noted. Connecting an old idea to a new challenge often leads to surprising new insights and ideas. Thomas Edison regularly employed this inspiration strategy to successfully resolve creative challenges.
10. Sweat it out: Finally, do something good for yourself and at the same time get creative inspiration. How? Work out daily. Recall your challenge before you enjoy a run, a brisk walk, a swim, a work-out in the gym, or a yoga session. Keep an open mind while you sweat and allow any idea to enter your mind. And if you’re like most people, ideas will flow right from your subconscious mind once you get into a rhythm.

Conclusion: Creativity lies in every moment — provided you’re open and know how to turn everyday occasions into opportunities for creative inspiration. How did I get the idea for this article? I was on my Yoga mat, doing 108 sun salutations and was just reciting the mantra “Creative ideas and inspirations are coming to me every day” when it hit me what I should write about today.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2015. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 29 October 2015.