Here is an awesome exercise to strengthen your creative muscles at home: The Matrix Challenge

Creativity is just connecting things together

So here we are in the twilight zone.

We are in the middle of a storm and locked up in our homes.

We are experiencing great uncertainty and disruption due to coronavirus.

We are all affected and united by the challenge of Covid-19.

Strange times indeed.

I know we are all anxious and disoriented at home.

However, the world needs you as a creative, resilient, and positive person.

This means we all need to take care of ourselves and focus on improving our mental state and wellbeing.

One of the best ways to do this to engage in creative exercises and puzzles.

Creativity Exercise: The Matrix Challenge

In this piece, I will share a powerful creative puzzle I have created with you.

It is short and sweet. You can apply it in 15 minutes or so.

This is a very fun exercise where you build connections between the rows and the columns in this matrix.

For example, you need to come up with ideas connecting ‘cats’ and ‘cooking’.

Then, you will connect ‘hats’ and ‘cooking’.

Then, ‘dance’ and ‘cooking’.

And then ‘romance’ and ‘cooking’.

You repeat this and come up with at least 1 idea combining each row with each column.

Remember:

The goal is just to connect these to come up with new ideas.

These can be new product, service, or business ideas.

Or, you can come up with creative ideas (such as an artwork or a Kickstarter type of project).

You will not judge or evaluate the quality of your ideas.

You can come up with ridiculous or crazy or foolish ideas.

You can come up with ideas that are not realistic or feasible.

Your goal is to come up with as many ideas as possible.

As we know, creativity is about connecting things together.

Even if these things are unrelated, you can force connections to come up with original ideas.

Originality comes from the sheer volume of your ideas, so you need to come up with as many ideas and connections as possible.

OK: Let’s start.

Do you have a pen or pencil.

You can draw the table below and then start.

At some point, your brain will resist creating more and more ideas.

Nevertheless, you need to continue your journey.

Do not give up!

If you have a lot of difficulty combining a row and a column, you need to stretch yourself, and even double the number of ideas!

Remember, creativity is a muscle you can develop.

You can develop your creative muscles much more effectively if you act as an idea generation machine.

When I did this exercise in class, some participants were able to come up with 30 ideas in a very short amount of time.

If you spend enough time, you can fill all the boxes and create 3 ideas for each box; which makes 96 ideas.

Think about the power of being able to generate so many ideas every day.

You can dramatically increase the quality of your life if you train your brain as an idea generation machine.

Try to make it a habit to create 100 ideas every day — this is immensely powerful.

Take-aways:

• In order to find fresh ideas, try to be a hunter and learner of the most interesting things.
• Cross boundaries — there are no borders.
• Go out of your comfort zone. Learn outside your discipline. Think and act wider.
• To solve the wicked problems of the 21st century, you need to think beyond borders and disciplines.
• Invest in yourself and your learning every day. This is the biggest investment you can ever make.
• You can get inspiration from 50 different people and 50 different fields. And then imagine you are a farmer and you are growing 50 creative projects: Let 50 flowers bloom at once!
• You need sheer volume and sheer diversity in your ideas. In order to achieve this, you need to read hundreds of books and articles beyond your narrow domain.
• Be a polymath: An individual whose knowledge spans a significant number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.
• Be an autodidact: A self-taught person individual who initiates and manages his/her own learning and reads voraciously.
• Try combining your polymath skills with autodidact skills. Then, you will be a renaissance person.
• Capture all your ideas in your diary. Your diary is a seed catalog of all your ideas. Write, draw, reflect, capture your ideas every day.
• We live in an imagination economy. Ideas are the new currency. Your attention (i.e. your time) is the most precious thing in the world.
• To manage yourself and your energy, you need to regularly write down your ideas and keep a journal.
• You need to combine your ideas and cross-pollinate them.
• Think of yourself as a gardener. You are growing lots of ideas in your mind (soil). Each of your ideas is like a seed. You need diverse ideas (seeds) — you will plant them all in your garden (diary/journal).
• You will record all your emerging ideas, thoughts, and reflections. You will then try to combine and grow them into bigger ideas. You will iterate your ideas and solutions into prototypes.

Conclusion

You need to work as an idea generation machine.

What if you make a habit of creating a minimum of 20–30 ideas every day?

The sheer volume of what you create matters.

For example, if you are passionate about creating doodles, try to create hundreds of them.

You need to think and act beyond borders.

Eradicate walls between disciplines and professions.

The best innovations always come from the outside, not inside a discipline.

The best ideas always come from the outside of your organization, not inside.

Build new bridges and imagine new connections.

To keep doing this, you need to keep learning new things every day.

You can tap into diverse sources of inspiration:

• films and books,
• animation and comics,
• dance and performance,
• visual arts and paintings,
• theatre and improvisation,
• the worlds of fashion and design,
• sports,
• pop culture,
• entrepreneurship,
• economics and politics,
• brands,
• magazines and trend reports,
• emerging lifestyles,
• philosophy, religion, and spirituality,
• history,
• science fiction,
• start-ups, innovation, and technology,
• and more.

Sharpen your skillset and keep experimenting.

Keep producing the best work you can.

And then, keep creating.

Work hard. Be consistent. Repeat.

Aim for fruitfulness and abundance.

Produce more ideas than you need.

Combine them with other ideas.

And then share your creations with the world.

Connecting things together is a super-power.

Claim yours.

Sincere regards;

Fahri

Fahri Karakas is the author of Self-making Studio.

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