10 Favorite Block Breakers:1. Redefine the problem to find it more compelling. Ask yourself something like "What if Winston Churchill was designing this packaging?" That will provide an unfamiliar angle and perhaps a new perspective. (Christian Helms, Graphic Designer)2. Dirty your canvas. Place an ink-stained handprint on its blankness so you have something to fix. (Deru, Musician)3. Draw blindly for half a minute. You can't criticize the results. Give yourself a theme (this works for freewriting, too, and let loose. Without expectation, you can break through to being able to work on your blocked project. (Paul Madonna, Illustrator and Cartoonist)4. "Look at creative block as growth." Consider this: "I'm not running out of ideas, just trying to push myself into better ones." (Mike McQuade, Graphic Designer and Illustrator)5. Fill your head with your view of the problem, review your notes, then go do something else, something mindless and mundane. ( Daniel Dennett, Professor of Philosophy)6. Look for patterns in your episodes of creative block. Take notes when it happens and you may notice a trend (maybe it happens mainly on Mondays). (Simon C. Page, Graphic Designer)7. Choose a better way to conceive of your blocks. For instance, rather than having to root through a blocked drain to achieve flow, consider temperature. "I try to find out what's hot and start there, even if it may be unrelated to what I need to be working on." (Michael Erard, Writer and Journalist) [Also see this post about famous poet Philip Levine, who "fires," rather than flows.]8. Induce a feeling of panic by giving yourself a deadline and stating your committment to other people. (Ben Barry, Graphic Designer at Facebook) [If the very word "deadline" causes you psychic pain, consider making friends with the concept; see this post.9. Come up with many solutions, not just one. Urged to list 20 possible next moves, your mind will stop fretting over finding the one perfect one. (Marc Johns, Illustrator)10. Don't browbeat yourself when you're in the necessary in-between times when most creativity gets its start. A lot of thinking time is crucial, and it happens where you can't see it. (Douglas Rushkoff, Writer)

5 Freewriting Secrets for Being a "Genius"These 5 tips enhance freewriting to generate more ideas. Published on November 21, 2010 by Susan K. Perry, Ph.D. in Creating in Flow 24inShare

You've heard of freewriting, certainly. At its most basic, it's about forcing your internal editor to stay away while you splash your most raw and unusual thoughts onto the page.In Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insights, and Content (2nd edition, revised & updated), Mark Levy tells how he uses freewriting, not only to loosen up his writing muscles, but to solve business problems of all kinds.Levy, author, writing teacher, and marketing strategist, shares a few "secrets" for making freewriting an indispensible tool:5 Freewriting Tips1. Try Easy. "Start scribbling, then remind yourself that you're simply looking to put some decent words and ideas down on the page: you're not trying to produce deathless prose and world-beating ideas in the course of a single night's writing." That recalls my own advice to "trivialize the task."See All Stories In

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Bottom of Form2. Work the Way You Think. "Use kitchen language. Coined by Ken Macrorie, it's a phrase that describes the language you use around the house when you're lounging in knock-around clothes. It's good strong language, but not the kind you'd normally use to get your point across in most settings."3. Learn to Love Lying. Freewrite about fantastic scenarios and you may find your mind unclogged. "If an element in your situation is small, think of it as tiny or jumbo." For a fascinating example of this, see the giant puppet girl.4. Getting a Hundred Ideas Is Easier Than Getting One. When you seek the one great idea, your perfectionism gets in the way of creativity. When you set out to amass lots of ideas, you won't stop at the first halfway decent one.5. Build an Inventory of Thoughts. Make good use of your freewriting pages by grabbing and sorting keepable ideas into a set of files (or a writer's notebook).Levy elaborates on each of those tips, and many more, using anecdotes from many realms. (I suggest you keep a batch of yellow stickies handy while you read.)