Inspiration 75 ways: How to be creative

1. Define how to be creative by asking yourself, “What is creativity to me?”
2. Stare at objects until they tell you their next story
3. Spend time doing mindless tasks and let your brain wander
4. Carry a journal and pen everywhere to capture your thoughts
5. Record ideas on your phone while you walk
6. Ask, “how about this – you want in?” to people you trust enough to collaborate with
7. View the recycling as inspiration and imagine entire worlds living inside discarded packaging
8. Take a sketchbook to the local coffee shop or for a cheeky wine at the pub and see what happens
9. Create a space to play and display your most enticing creative tools. Walk past it every day until the anticipation pulls you in
10.  Take notes while listening to podcasts, watching videos, and reading books
11. Be happy to sit in silence without your phone in interesting places
12. Introduce more than routine to your day
13. Make creativity a habit
14. Make notes on your steering wheel while waiting to pick up the kids
15. Get comfortable with doing things imperfectly, roughly, energetically
16. Repeat the mantras – “done is better than perfect” and “better out than in”
17. Stay away from people who doubt your creative skill
18. Find people that make you accountable to the process
19. Don’t let yourself off the “I never have time” hook quite so readily
20. Spend time with people who genuinely enjoy your company
21. Believe in creativity’s restorative values and use it to pep you up on grey days
22. Create at the start of the day and get high off creativity’s energy
23. Find people you admire and would like to be like, and notice how they do things
24. Keep craft and art supplies by the bed
25. Dance and sing while you wait for the kettle to boil
26. Reign in your appetite for certainty, fitting in, and excelling
27. Put your acoustic instrument in the lounge room. Pick it up instead of your phone
28. Unplug the internet at every opportunity
29. Get angry about the state of the world – and do something or say something about it with your creativity
30. Keep your creative practice as close to the way you played as a kid and use that muscle memory to your advantage
31. Respect your creativity has its own seasons and don’t force it
32. Invest in tools that make creating pleasurable
33. Stop focusing on the outcome and focus on the action, the process, the system, or the learning instead
34. Be OK to create lots and publish a little
35. Give yourself permission to play
36. Know when the routine is helping you and when it’s getting in the way
37. Consume things that make you want to collect, curate, and build on what’s there
38. Avoid people who devalue the arts, creativity, taking risks, and art for art’s sake
39. Team up with other innovators in science, technology, and other fields where the desire to explore, unravel mystery, and answer their own insatiable calling
40. Create your own version of creative productivity
41. Find inspired, values-driven people and drink deeply from their creative wells until it waters your own brain
42. Recognise the unfairness of the system and of being a creative under capitalism without allowing the anger to sour or devour you
43. Set yourself challenges
44. Experiment
45. Follow the whimsy before you overthink it
46. Punch cliches in the face with something much more brave
47. Accept the pain of visibility and create anyway
48. Never break the creative chain
49. Write down all the reasons why you believe you cannot create – and argue loudly with them until you find a way
50. View money and financial independence as an act of rebellion
51. Work with what you have right now instead of what you hope to possess in future
52. Kill off people who piss you off as characters in your writing, art, music, film etc to relieve your frustrations
53. Recognise creativity as an investment in your self-care, stress reduction, and mental health. Treat it with the same respect of any other business investment
54. Make a commitment to practice and production you can keep
55. Don’t set the bar so high you’re tortured by monolithic, funding-hungry projects that need mythical time off that you’ll never have to complete them
56. Start talking about your creative projects because the more you put it out there, the more you’ll gather interest, ideas, courage, and momentum
57. (Then) Stop talking about your creative projects so you don’t trick your brain into thinking talking is more important than taking action
58. Book the date for the exhibition, book launch, record release party, event etc. before you’ve finished the work you’re going to share
59. Stop hoarding your ideas and get stuck into them
60. Identify your unique forms of creative sabotage in a list – and write the antidote next to them. Stick that to the bathroom mirror so you see it every day
61. Write all your “sometimes” and “maybe” ideas on scraps of paper. Put them in a jar. Use the jar as your inspiration lucky dip
62. Observe your creative process, learn from it, and get to know it intimately so you can call it up any time to play
63. Don’t let inner voices of doubt drown out the sound of creative ideas you like. Manage the volume with inspiring content, therapy, and time spent in the company of other creatives
64. Invent a daily ten-minute creative practice
65. Be OK to skip or replace that creative practice occasionally
66. Stop reading articles on the creative habits of other people and notice what works for you instead
67. Call your inner critic a funny name, and when they say mean stuff, say, “Whatever Hortence!” or “Mildred, pack that sour thought away!”
68. Manufacture artificial deadlines
69. Use other deadlines like prizes, grants, competitions, etc. to make you do stuff
70. Even if you have no hope of winning or succeeding or finishing, try anyway
71. Use art as your most effective way to complain
72. Make creativity a priority
73. Do it for the kids and young people watching, waiting for permission to do the same
74. Say, “today, I will create something” and see where that takes you
75. Decide that the awkward, uncomfortable, anxiety-inducing nature of creating something new is a better experience than looking back and wishing you had found the time to get to it some day

Need more advice on how to be creative? Check out Freelance Jungle’s Leaf Litter small inspirational bursts today