How to Be Creative – eBook

If we can all be creative, why is it so hard to come up with truly original ideas?

It's because creativity is mysterious. Just ask any scientist, artist, writer or other highly creative person to explain how they come up with brilliant ideas and, if they're honest, they don't really know.

But over the decades psychologists have given ordinary participants countless tests, forms and tasks and conducted hundreds of hours of interviews. From these emerge the psychological conditions of creativity.

Not what you should do, but how you should be.

Six scientific principles of creativity

In the scientific literature six principles of creativity recur again and again:

1. Knowledge - explores the dangers of expertise.
2. Problem construction - how creative problems should be approached.
3. Emotion - explains which types of emotions are most creative.
4. Combining concepts - why the raw materials are already out there.
5. Abstraction - how to see your creative problem more clearly.
6. The wandering mind - reveals how to think flexibly.

Each are explained with examples from the research and are directly applicable to everyday creativity.

The science of innovation, clearly explained

This ebook examines what we can learn from Google, the improvisational TV program 'Whose Line is it Anyway?', ski designers and thinking about sex or love.

• Summarises many hundreds of experiments carried out by psychologists over decades,
• Illustrated with examples from everyday experience,
• Includes diverse research on everyday problem solving, Chinese artists and engineering firms as well as insights from the greatest scientific, musical and artistic minds like Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and Mozart.

Because the ebook focuses on the psychological aspects of creativity, the principles can be applied in any situation. So it doesn't matter if you want to be creative at home, in business, or anywhere: the same psychological principles apply.

You can learn to be more creative

As Pablo Picasso once pointed out, all children are creative; the challenge is to remain creative into adulthood. Unfortunately public education systems around the world seem designed to crush creativity in favour of rote learning and test passing. As the years pass a fear of being wrong takes over from our natural creative tendencies.

Unlike mathematics, languages or the humanities, we are rarely taught about creativity, despite its importance to our lives. Yet the information is out there, waiting to be used.

If you would like to be more creative at work and at home—and that has to be most of us—the insights in this ebook will be useful.

Formats

The ebook is available in the following formats:

• PDF — can be read on desktops, laptops, mobile phones and other devices using free software from Adobe (available for both MACs and PCs).
• Kindle — optimised for Amazon's electronic reading device.
• ePub — suitable for reading on an Apple iPad, iPhone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, Android phones and many other devices.

This should make it readable in most formats. The ebook is similar in length to three book chapters.

Money back guarantee

If there are any problems with downloading the file or you are not satisfied for any reason, then I'll happily provide a full refund. Simply email me through the contact page on PsyBlog and let me know the problem.

About the author

Jeremy Dean has two advanced degrees in psychology and is currently a researcher at University College London. He is the owner and author of the acclaimed website 'PsyBlog', which describes scientific research into how the mind works.

Everyday creativity

Creativity isn't just about serious things in life, it's also about everyday creativity, the kind that we exercise while deciding how to spend our weekends, or what to cook for the evening meal.

The ebook is written in an engaging and enjoyable style designed to be easy reading. This information, however, will not be posted on PsyBlog, but will only exclusively be available in this ebook.

This is not a book of tips and tricks—although it contains some easy to implement strategies—rather it aims to cultivate a deeper understanding of a creative mindset.

More of what readers are saying...

Here are just some of the comments readers have made so far:

"Just purchased and read your eBook. Your writing style is a brilliant fit and is a pleasure to read. The book is both highly interesting and informative with an impressive amount of research making it very easy to understand and straightforward. Looking forward to getting more from you!"

-Leo Gopal

"I enjoyed your ebook on creativity. I've actually been looking for something along those lines for a while."

-Brian Kurilla, Cognitive Scientist

"I have just downloaded your Creativity e-book. I love it. Bravo. Thank you for being a light of hope for many people who actually want to learn and benefit from psychology - as you are a rising star in that you make it real and accessible!"

-Mick Karolac (soon to be MSW)

"I just read this and I'm very impressed by how well you summarized a number of different and often conflicting ideas into a brief, coherent and useful summary of principles. I'm hoping to see more of these great research summaries with practical application. This kind of quality synopsis is worth more than a barn full of press releases and superficial reviews."

-Todd Stark

"Hi Jeremy, your book is very helpful, and practical too. It is the right size, with a good amount of research. Thanks for writing it."

-Gautam Gupta

"Just bought and read 'How to Be Creative'. I really enjoyed how simply and clearly written it was. I find this information fascinating and helpful! I see many parallels with your descriptions of creative people's processes and challenges and myself. Thanks! I'll recommend your ebook to every creative person I know."

-Randy Willoughby