Creativity on a deadline
Creativity is unruly.
Sometimes the ideas are unending, like a roster of new Hallmark Christmas movies (one year they released 26 new holiday films, that’s just impressive).
But other times, ideas run away from you, lock themselves in a treasure chest, and hide at the bottom of the ocean.
On top of this, you’re probably working on creative challenges all day — on a deadline. It’s common to have only a few hours or minutes to come up with creative solutions
So what can you do when you’re out of time and asked to deliver the moon?
Here are 3 ways to help speed up your creative process.
Editor’s Note: One important point of caution here… Great ideas take time. If a client or employer asks you to create winning ideas regularly with unreasonable timelines, pushback is warranted. Protect your peace.
1. More Bad Ideas
One of the quickest ways to warm up your internal idea engine is to eliminate any feeling of pressure through bad ideas. Requiring bad ideas as a first step improves every creative process.
Bad ideas typically fall into two categories: the obvious and the absurd. Making a list of obvious and absurd solutions to your creative challenge will put you in a much better headspace and better equip you to form new ideas through these connections.
Sometimes, these lists of obvious or absurd ideas will contain your winning solution, and sometimes, they are a great shortcut to jumpstart inspiration.
Time to execute: 5 minutes
2. Constraints as a Canvas
We frequently need to tackle new projects or client requests with very specific constraints. Questioning these limits is at the heart of creativity.
Constraint-led ideation is the process of listing all of a project's constraints and then questioning each limitation one-by-one. Restructure each constraint as a “what if” question and ask yourself what would have to be true to be able to ignore each constraint.
Not all constraints are negotiable, but there’s usually something you can question.
The process of going through each perceived barrier will do two things: 1) get your creative brain moving in the right direction and 2) define the canvas of what you have to work with.
Time to execute: 10 minutes
3. Creativity Loves a List
Start making lists of everything you love.
This will become a huge resource to pull from when you’re up against a deadline.
Here are some lists I keep (several for over a decade):
Favorite words
Design I love
Great art
Fiction book ideas (these are mostly from dreams)
Non-fiction book ideas
Amazing things my partner says
Stories from my life (collecting personal anecdotes)
Interesting stories I hear (collecting random anecdotes)
Bad ideas (counterintuitive creativity anecdotes)
Engagement templates (social inspo)
My top drawer list (got this from Nicole D’Alonzo, a list of wins and support)
Starting this habit is easy. Pick one list idea that brings you joy and start adding to it today. Next time you see a good example of that thing, add to it. Rinse and repeat.
I update some of these lists every week, and some less often. Many have years of content. The longer you keep these lists, the more valuable and special they become.
I started my bad ideas list 9 years ago and it’s been an essential resource while writing my new book, The Case for More Bad Ideas (coming soon).
If you often have to solve a specific creative challenge on a deadline, consider a list of inspiration or examples that would help you in those moments.
Time to execute: A few minutes each week
Try these tactics next time the world gives you a challenging timeline. And don’t feel bad on those days when your ideas are a little less shiny than you’d like. Keep going, take breaks, and when all else fails, revert to joy.
ps. What’s your creative challenge?
When I ask our community what they need the most help with, coming up with new ideas more consistently is always at the top of the list. We’re building something to help.
Let me know — What part of your creative process needs the most support? (hit reply)
Inspiration: Getting unstuck when you’re in an idea rut
Scale: Generating more ideas
Quality: Generating better or more unique ideas
Team: Getting better at collaboration or brainstorms