Training Creative Thinking

Stretch your horizons:

1. Set time aside to read in other fields.
2. Collect and file clippings, notes, and ideas that seem original.
3. Attempt to work or write on a problem outside your own field.
4. Move about and exchange ideas with others.
5. Listen to comments and complaints.
6. Cultivate hobbies like puzzle solving, chess, and bridge.

Cultivate your field:

1. Seek out all available sources of information.
2. Read and examine the literature in your field.
3. Question every accepted assumption about your field.
4. Don't be too quick to throw out unorthodox or unusual ideas.
5. Look for the key factors of your problem and try to isolate them.

Pinpoint the problem:

1. State your problem in a simple, basic, broad general way.
2. Keep asking yourself: What are the problems actual boundaries?
3. Break down the problem's variables through analysis.
   

Hunt for ideas:

1. List the ideas and various approaches that might solve the problem.
2. Beware the dangers of early commitment.
3. Refuse to be downed by initial failure.
4. Don't be discouraged if you experience a sense of stress when looking for a solution.
5. When you tackle your problem again, go over the approaches and ideas you had listed previously.
6. If you still do not make progress toward a solution, reexamine your problem definition(s).

Suspend your lagging enthusiasm:

1. Suspend judicial thinking.
2. Set idea quotas for yourself.
3. Always carry a notebook.
4. Proper mood is important for creative problem-solving.
5. During the creative process, practice emphatic involvement.
6. If you are not making any headway, even after your "second wind" drop your problem and do something different.
7. Organize your time with logic periods when you can engage in hobbies or be completely alone and silent.
8. Sometimes it is inadvisable to discuss your problem-solving ideas with others, particularly before you have a chance to develop and crystallize them to some degree.
9. Sometimes discussing your problem with people unfamiliar with your problem or line of work can give you a new start.
10. Determine the physical conditions during which you are regularly do your best thinking.
11. During problem-solving, avoid distractions and intrusions as much as possible.
12. Develop a "retrospective awareness" of the times when you solved your problems creatively.
13. Schedule your creative problem-solving periods for those times when you have your most favorable mental set for producing ideas.
14. Be prepared and alert for the "moment of surprise."

Source: Training Creative Thinking (1971) by Gary A. Davis and Joseph A. Scott.