Divergent Thought Processes – Fascinate Your Brain – Tap Into Your Creative Side.

Divergent thinking is an important ingredient when talking about creativity. One of the leading obstacles we each confront in relation to divergent thinking is the ability to just let ideas flow. One of the reasons for this is that many of us evaluate ideas while we are coming up with them.

We all essentially are engaging in convergent thinking, which is more logical, it applies far more to analysis, however being the opposite of divergent thinking we tend to end up with the epic struggle that leads to frustration.

Basically we should instead separate them, which may seem odd, considering that it is all thinking, what’s distinct is, one is trying to connect the dots and fit it into a logical picture, whilst the other is developing ideas devoid of reason for rationality. The fact is one cannot really be engaged while the other is taking place.

1/ Start composing your ideas, pick your subject and then get writing. take into account that it is not necessary to organize them at this stage, neither will it be important for them to make sense. You may notice that you start to evaluate your thoughts, that’s ok, old habits die hard, its going to come and go, for the moment simply get it in writing. There is no intent at the moment for any of your ideas to seem sensible, your in no way writing an essay or dissertation.

2/ Create a journal, this journal comes with a single goal, which is to put your ideas in one place and also to be with you at all possible moments. Pocket journals are excellent, just whip it out when you have an idea, just get your ideas out of your brain, document all of them in writing, or record with audio.

Everybody knows that ideas have a tendency to turn up at the most inopportune moments, so be it, utilizing your journal you’ll write them down as soon as you can if not straight away. Despite the fact that ideas are most often in short supply as soon as we need them as you keep a journal you will see that you have still got lots of ideas.

3/ Lastly visualization, it is at this stage that you’re going to start to manage your ideas, you’ll take your ideas that you wrote in your journal and begin to connect the dots. This in effect will be your mind map. You can label your ideas, put them in groups arranged by their relationship. You’ll have a primary category and subcategories. You now will start to evaluate and indulge in convergent thinking to determine what matches up.

These are simply a few simple suggestions to get your divergent juices flowing, it’s actually a fascinating exercise and something I do think you will probably take pleasure in. As you write ideas don’t feel it necessary to organize them right away, let time go by, add more ideas when they arise, then a few days later start to organize. Allow your subconscious mind to also come into play, allow the seeds of divergent thinking to take root. Most of all, have fun.

Here is a great resource for Divergent Thinking exercises & puzzles. Click on Divergent Thinking to discover more on tapping into your creative side.