Improve Your Creativity in 20 Minutes NOW Using Only A4 Paper!
Creativity is like a muscle and it can be strengthened through practical exercises and experiments we can easily apply in our daily lives. In this article, I present you with a very simple, but effective creativity exercise to help you develop your generative thinking and brainstorming skills.
We tend to underestimate the power of paper in our lives. When we think about it, paper was one of the greatest inventions in history. It was the greatest force that shaped civilizations throughout centuries. Paper was at the heart of progress, learning, books, information, science, innovation, currencies, bureaucracy, technologies, and more.
The exercise will take about 20 minutes of your time, but it will offer you the highest amount of return for such a short period of time. Benefits include relaxation, joy, playfulness, imagination, an open mind, asset creation, increased confidence, and value creation.
Exercise A: Think of at least 50 things to create from an A4 paper.
- Turn A4 paper into diverse products and innovations.
- You can cut, transform, fold, combine, or paint it.
- Try origami patterns, DIY, craft projects, etc.
- Think of yourself as an inventor.
- Think of as many uses as possible for an A4.
- Invent various games using paper.
- Combine paper with other things.
- Use design thinking to innovate.
- Use pen/pencil and write on it (story, poem, puzzle, doodle, artwork, flag, etc.)
- Create value from A4 paper.
- Have fun. Go wild.
- Make money.
- Use your creativity and boundless imagination.
- Create as many ideas as possible.
- Write down your ideas.
Exercise B: How can you increase the value of this A4 paper?
Your goal is to increase the value of the paper as much as you can (through your inventions, products, artwork, stories, storytelling, etc.). In other words, your goal is to create breakthrough value.
You can create breakthrough value by using your imagination. Your imagination has no boundaries. Think about the time when J.K Rowling first wrote her ideas for Harry Potter on paper. In a sense, this can be considered an invention based on paper. After thousands of iterations and several years, Harry Potter is now valued at $25billion. It all started with imagination and paper.
Now, it is your turn to imagine and increase the value of paper as much as you can. How will you do it? Come up with as many ideas as you can. Here are some ideas to get you started, or to give you inspiration:
- You can draw and paint on it, to make it artwork or an artifact.
- You can fold it (using origami methods) and turn it into a paper sculpture.
- You can turn it into a painting — paint or draw a picture of it and give a title to that painting.
- You can write a short story on it.
- You can create a song on it.
- You can create a cartoon on it.
- You can create poems, templates, a checklist, artwork, sketches, an invitation, a postcard, a CV, etc.
- You can create new products and services by combining paper with other things.
- You can also create lots of ideas by building bridges between A4 paper and other unrelated items.
- You can use glue on paper.
- You can use scissors to cut it into pieces and reconnect them.
- You can create DIY projects or start craft projects based on paper.
- Can you combine paper with other things to invent stationery products? Can you invent other things?
- You can color the paper or use multiple colors to make things exciting — you can create a painting or a flag for example.
- You can have a celebrity sign the paper, and voila! You are now holding something very valuable in your hands. It is all about perceived value and symbols (the same with money — which is just paper + meaning/symbol or institution/shared belief). Again, it all comes down to imagination and the story.
- To get more artistic inspiration check out the following resource: