Capturing tools for creative work

[pdnewbie]

Hello everyone, I was hoping those who would like to share their capturing tools for creative work. I would like to know as much as possible about them, but particularly I'd like to know such things as:

* physical characteristics (size, shape)
* how they're used, and
* in what context they're used.

Some other things that might be useful to know, though I'm not sure about this:

* how the tools make you feel (say as a productive worker), and
* how long it takes you to make productive use of your tool.

I think it will be really helpful for everyone, because great tools can help people get unstuck with their productivity problems. Instead of throwing spears to catch fish, we could be using a rod, or a net, or a trained seal, or whatever. You get my point. The bigger the list the better.

[jojo]

Hey pdnewbie,
I am not sure if I am on the right track with what you are asking about 'capturing tools for creative work' but this is what I took from your question. I use a lot of different tools/techniques for when I am creatively stuck...also use a couple of them on a daily basis to keep the juices flowing and the 'saw sharpened' so to speak! These include:

1. Journaling (this is a combo deal of free-form writing and also directed writing when I want to sort something out)
2. Finger painting
3. Doodooling (this is especially good in keeping my drawing skills up)
4. Collages
5. Playing with water
6. Building sandcastles
7. Walking/wandering and taking a focus on sounds/colours etc
8. Dancing
9. Cooking
10. Laughing!

"The Artists Way" was a great resource for me and I learnt a lot about myself while going through the weeks (it is a 12 week workbook/course) and also there are a lot of fabulous tools in this book.

Many smiles!

Edit: pdnewbie...I just read a couple of your other threads and realised I was totally off track with my answers to this question...LOL! Sorry about that!

[pdnewbie]

No that's fine, it was good to see something quirky. Yeah my thread was intended for planning, organising ideas, coming up with solutions for problems, basically getting ideas I have and sculpting them to guide me when moving forward. But yes, your ideas would be useful for artistic work and you did the right thing replying to the thread. It might help others.

[Brad Isaac]

Have you looked into any Moleskine journals? You can find them at Amazon. Some are for drawing, writing, notetaking. They are wonderful to have on hand to jot down an idea, take notes - "capture" stuff you don't want to lose.

They are also high quality so it's fun to put valuable content into them.

[Sunnybayes]

For me its mind maps all the way. FreeMind is what I use. I dont need anything with fancy graphics like the other ones give because I just want something that I can rapidly spit out new ideas, without getting bogged down in the interface.



The reason that mind maps are awesome is because:
You totally just puke out your mind onto the mind map. Then you find your favorite most juicy leaf node. Then you concentrate on that leaf node.... kinda like intention/manifestation style on that leaf node, and then new ideas pop into your mind, and then in a full flury you write all those down. So that way you just constantly dig deeper and deeper into your fuzzy ideas until they become more concrete.

I like it better than writing in a linear way because mind maps lets you hide the clutter so that you can build absolutely huge and wonderful trees without being bogged down. And then when you think of a new idea, you can put it in the right place, and its easy to see where the right place is.

And its easier to concentrate your attention on one idea, and then be able to specifically see the context that gave you those ideas.

And then the most important thing that I find for creativity is that I just constantly review all the ideas that I have written down, pause for about 5 minutes without doing anything just to let the ifuzzy ideas spin around , until they start feeling more solid or converge into one overall idea, and then when the idea "feels" solid enough in my mind, I release it and a whole new string of ideas come flying out from that new concept that I've just developed.

Anyway, there's my weird observation of creativity.

Also they fit nicely with my model of how the mind works with Invariant Representations.
See My figure out the feelings inside my brain/body thread

[pdnewbie]

Thanks for your input. One technique I've used for organising thoughts is using sticky notes to capture a thought for say, what's needed to be done for a project. You stick the ideas on a wall, and move them around to build the outline. I think that idea is really good where several people do this on their own and put the results together. It makes for a better outline.

Keep the ideas coming!

[dor]

Originally Posted by Brad Isaac

Have you looked into any Moleskine journals? You can find them at Amazon. Some are for drawing, writing, notetaking. They are wonderful to have on hand to jot down an idea, take notes - "capture" stuff you don't want to lose.

They are also high quality so it's fun to put valuable content into them.

Moleskines are great! They really get your creativity flowing. and you can carry them like your wallot - nothing beats a sharp pencil and paper for quickness and immediacy
check out some users here:
Moleskine Stories, MoleskineUS

[Brad Isaac]

Originally Posted by Sunnybayes

For me its mind maps all the way. FreeMind is what I use. I dont need anything with fancy graphics like the other ones give because I just want something that I can rapidly spit out new ideas, without getting bogged down in the interface..

Oh yeah...I forget about mindmaps. That is another great tool to use. You don't necessarily need software to do it either. If you are more into art you can get a big sheet of paper, colored pencils and do one up on the spot.

[Grigor]

Speaking of "analog" tools, I also vote for Moleskines. I use Cahiers, two sets of different sizes. Each set contains three journals. Smaller ones I always carry in a pocket and bigger (size "large") in my backpack.
I prefer cahiers because they are cheaper then ordinary Moleskine notebooks, even when you take into account number of pages.
Regards,
Grigor

[pdnewbie]

Does anyone use whiteboards and corkboards for creative work? How large are they? How long does it take before you get productive when using them?

[pdnewbie]

Does anyone have any suggestions about the previous reply?

[Sunnybayes]

Of course it totally depends on what you are trying to capture and in what context!

If it is really large, then you can get more onto it without having to erase, but then you would be running back and forth across the room


I'd think they are no good because you can't save what you have written on them.

But if you are doing a meeting or something then everyone can have a good view of it on the white board and contribute to the creative process. Though its messy.

Then you can take it and put it in your pocket if you are done. But I guess you could take a picture of the white board with your camera.

Tonight I'll make a post about what creativity actually means in terms of how the brain works, and then I'll put that link here.

But you can become good with cork boards if you want... just sit down for an hour and think about it, and brainstorm, and define a system, and then once you have done that, go ahead and share what you have found out about it with us. Maybe you could even brainstorm this using a white board and cork board to get some experience with it.


creativity I've found it just writing down the first thing that comes to mind somewhere, and then you can get it off your mind. Then you can pick one node of knowlege that you have written down, let it spin in your mind and then just write down some more.

So the actual system or medium that you use does not really matter too much, but I go for speed so you can let your creative juices flow faster.


So cork board and white board to me would just seem inefficient compared to using mind mapping software, because it is just physically too limiting and slow...

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by pdnewbie

Does anyone have any suggestions about the previous reply?

I am using a white board to constantly remind me of goals and random stuff I need to do each day. It works quite nicely for me, not really used for creative stuff though. Besides a small space for '7 day ideas', if it still sounds amazing in 7 days I'll take a good hard look at it and maybe implement it.

[RT Wolf]

Originally Posted by pdnewbie

Does anyone use whiteboards and corkboards for creative work? How large are they? How long does it take before you get productive when using them?

I have a corkboard. I keep a bunch of sheets on which I write ideas and tack them up. I use it to work out ideas. Its maybe 3 feet by 4 feet? It didn't really take me any time to get used to it.

For whiteboards, I don't have one yet, but you can get a really cheap one by going to your local hardware store and buying some melamine. Its used to cover cheap bathroom walls, I think, its waterproof. Just get some dry erase markers and viola! Cheap whiteboard. It can be really big, too, cause its so cheap.

Another thing I use to work out ideas is mind mapping on large pieces of paper. 11 by 17 (two letter size papers stuck together). You can go to a stationary store and buy them cheap. I got 500 for about 11 can dollars.

For initial ideas, I'll write them down whereever or in my notebook. I keep a notebook of ideas and write down what kind of idea it is using a notation. So, SM is a movie idea, S is a story idea, I is an image idea, etc. If I don't have my notebook, I keep paper and pen on me at all times to write it down and then throw it into my in-basket from where it gets processed into my notebook. I'm in a GTDer

When I'm working out an idea, I mindmap, like I said, on paper, corkboard, whatever. Fun fun.