We’ve all been there.
You’re sitting in a brainstorm and can’t think of a single idea. Your deadline is looming and you can’t come up with a topic to write about. You have to schedule a week’s worth of content and have no idea what to post.
You’re stuck in a creative rut.
While there are countless theories on how to get out of a creative roadblock—72 percent of people say their best ideas have come to them in the shower—the following TED Talks offer tried and trued advice to get those ideas flowing.
In this post, you’ll find TED Talks that will help you:
- Boost your creativity as soon as possible
- Find your next great idea
- Turn the power of play into workplace innovation
- Discover the secrets of the best ideators
Continue reading for a list of our favorite TED Talks that can help get you out of a creative rut—no shower required.
“How do you think of ideas?” This is the question American rock band OK Go gets asked most often. Their innovative music videos—featuring everything from dances in zero gravity to drone footage of hundreds of umbrella dancers in a Tokyo parking lot—have put the band on the map.
Lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash leads their TED Talk by explaining that the band doesn’t think of ideas, but rather finds them. He uses an analogy of a sandbox to explain that the band uses their resources to get in the “sandbox” and play in order to find these great ideas. It is in the process of actually playing and working things out (in this “sandbox”) that their bigger, better ideas will eventually reveal themselves.
Kulash explains the creative process in the following steps:
- You think of your first idea and a plan to make it happen (i.e. Think about how you will build a sand castle in the sandbox analogy.)
- Go back and double-check your original idea (i.e. Change some of your sandcastle designs, move some towers, change some details)
- Revise it (i.e. Start playing with the sand and revising your sandcastle design further.)
- Go back and forth between the idea and the plan until you eventually have a solid, actionable strategy (i.e. Mapping out the step-by-step plan for building the sandcastle.)
- Execute your idea (i.e. Build the refined sandcastle.)
It seems simple, but Kulash emphasizes the importance of thinking over execution. Follow these steps—and play in your own “sandbox”—to find your own great ideas.
Radio host and author Julie Burstein sets the tone for her TED Talk by sharing “creativity grows from broken places.” Burstein speaks with creative people for a living and shares the key lessons about creativity she has learned over the years.
According to Burstein, there are four core aspects of life that we need to embrace so that our own creativity can flourish:
- Experience. Burstein explains we need to pay attention to the world around us. By being open to new experiences that could change us, we open ourselves up to creative possibilities.
- Challenge. Burstein explains how the most powerful creative work can come out of the parts of life that are most difficult.
- Limitation. Getting pushed to, and past, your limits is sure to boost creativity. Burstein explains how figuring out where your limits are is how many find where strengths lie instead.
- Loss. The most difficult of the lessons. Burstein explains that “in order to create, we have to stand in that space between what we see in the world and what we hope for, looking squarely at rejection, heartbreak, war, and death.”
The next time you need a creative boost, think about these four core aspects.
It may seem counterintuitive, but tech podcaster Manoush Zomorodi argues that boredom can increase creativity.
“When your body goes on autopilot, your brain gets busy forming new neural connections that connect ideas and solve problems,” Zomorodi explains. In a world where we have countless things to distract us from boredom, Zomorodi outlines the very reasons being bored can be beneficial to creativity.
Zomorodi created the “Bored…
