In the words of Steve Jobs:
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”
One of the best ways to exercise your creative muscles is to generate tens of ideas every day. You can best do this by engaging in creative exercises and connecting unrelated things together every day. You can give your brain fresh puzzles and challenges to exercise your creative muscles.
In this article, I will provide you with two powerful matrix exercises to do that. You will connect unrelated things, apply generative thinking, strengthen your creative muscles, create 195 ideas in total, and unleash your creativity as a result.
Imagine you are an entrepreneur. You will create 3 business ideas (products or services) at the intersection of each column and row. Your goal is to create fresh product or service ideas by connecting things together. Do not judge your ideas, and feel free to create ideas that are nonsense, wild, or crazy. Your goal is to maximize the number of your ideas and keep them flowing — achieve momentum. By the end of this exercise, you will have 99 fresh business ideas! It is an excellent way to foster your creativity.
Similar to the exercise above, you will create fresh ideas at the intersection of each column and row. Your goal is to create fresh ideas by connecting things together. Your goal is to maximize the number of your ideas and keep them flowing.
This is a very fun exercise where you build connections between the rows and the columns in this matrix. For example, you need to come up with ideas connecting ‘cats’ and ‘cooking’. Then, you will connect ‘hats’ and ‘cooking’. Then, ‘dance’ and ‘cooking’. And then ‘romance’ and ‘cooking’. You repeat this and come up with at least 1 idea combining each row with each column.
Your goal is to connect these to come up with new ideas. These can be new products, services, or business ideas. Alternatively, you can come up with creative ideas (such as artwork or a Kickstarter type of project). You will not judge or evaluate the quality of your ideas. You can come up with ridiculous or crazy or foolish ideas. You can come up with ideas that are not realistic or feasible. Your goal is to come up with as many ideas as possible.
Creativity is about connecting things together. Even if these things are unrelated, you can force connections to come up with original ideas. Originality comes from the sheer volume of your ideas, so you need to come up with as many ideas and connections as possible.
If you have a lot of difficulty combining a row and a column, you need to stretch yourself, and even double the number of ideas. Remember, creativity is a muscle you can develop. You can develop your creative muscles much more effectively if you act as an idea-generation machine.
If you spend enough time, you can fill all the boxes and create 3 ideas for each box; which makes 96 ideas. Think about the power of being able to generate so many ideas every day.
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