Balder Onarheim's '3 Tools to Become More Creative'
In his 2015 Ted Talk, Balder Onarheim challenges the audience to expand their understanding of creativity – from ‘Picasso creativity’ to ‘Vladimir Putin creativity’. He introduces the concept of creativity as one that is not limited to the forms of art with which it is often associated – dancing, painting. Studies on expertise and creativity within a learning domain show that as expertise reaches a peak, creativity begins to lower. Similarly, he shows a mind puzzle that children solve quickly, whilst adults struggle.
This is due to associative limitations. Using the example of a cell phone and computer, Onarheim explains how what once were considered to be two entirely different things by many are now understood as very similar by the majority. Through training, associative limitation training can allow people to improve their ability to find information that we naturally may find to be irrelevant. Those Onarheim listed are:
- - Continuous practice:
This involves looking at an object and acknowledging the first three words that come to mind. These are often in some way associated with the object. After this, you think of three words that are as far away from/unrelated to the starting object as possible. With time, doing this “random word” exercise will improve your ability to think of random words. Interestingly, hip-hop artists that freestyle often are known for being exceptionally good at this exercise.
- - Sleep as a creative technique
During sleep, specifically R.E.M sleep in which we dream, the rules which limit our creativity do not apply. To practice shifting associative limitations through sleep, one can “prime” their sleep. This involves thinking about the problem that has to be solved, however refraining from solving it. When waking up, you may have dreamt about something that could help solve the problem.
- - Right now solution
Also described by Onarheim as randomness. Here, he suggests clicking “randomise” on Wikipedia, and then attempting to force whatever article appeared into your problem.
