Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #380 - Quick Creative

Episode Date: November 4, 2016

Mark shares some tips on how to be creative quickly.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today, today's topic came by in an interesting way. So every morning when I'm doing my podcast, normally on Mondays and Tuesdays, I do my podcast on the way to work. If I mess up, then I do it on Wednesdays or Thursdays, or if I get behind. Anyway, normally Mondays and Tuesdays I do my podcast.

So normally in the morning I get up, I have to do various stuff and I'm running out the door. You know, in the morning I do my head to head. I have to make my comic. I have to get my kids ready. I get up, get ready myself, get my kids ready, make their lunches, get the kids off to school. I'm just doing a lot of things. But among those times, I also got to figure out what my podcast topic is. Usually, I figure it out the day of. Sometimes, if I've done a little prep for it, like sometimes if I'm going to go through a set, I'll have to do some work ahead of time. So I know when those times I know it.

So if I've done a little prep work, sometimes I know ahead of time what I'm doing. But a lot of mornings, I literally like I'm just about to go out the door. I'm like, okay, what's my podcast topic? I was joking with my wife. I said, I don't have a podcast. What's my podcast topic? I go, maybe it should be about making podcast topics. And I realized that actually was an interesting idea.

I'll be a little broader than that. So my topic today is how to be creative quickly when you have to be creative. How do you, like, one of the things I know is sometimes people are like, well, let me think on the idea. I'll sit about it and I'll let it percolate for a while. And that's awesome. And I do that a lot. You know, a lot of thought for me is just taking ideas and sitting with them for a while. And I'm a big fan of that.

But sometimes you can't do that. Like I mentioned my comic, for example. Every morning I wake up while I'm getting ready, I have to make a magic comic every weekday. And I don't have like, I've been doing it now for, I think as of today was my 1,366, 366 comic. I do it every day. And part of the thing is, part of sort of the practice of it is knowing every day I'm going to do it. And part of the thing is, part of sort of the practice of it is knowing every day I'm going to do it. So I have to kind of find a joke, you know, and that one of the things about it is, and I talked about this when I actually did my podcast on my comic,

is that I like sort of, I like having times when I'm forced myself to do something, to be creative in tight spaces. And today's topic is about, well, how do you do that? Okay, I'm getting ready. I got to make a comic. I have to do it. You know, how do I do that? Or I'm about to get in my car. I need a podcast topic. Okay, I got to get a podcast topic. How do I do that? So we're going to walk through the techniques of what I call sort of speed creative thinking. So when you're on the spot, you're like, okay, I have to come up with something. Because it's very easy to go, well, I can't come up with something now. Okay, so the first thing is

there's this technique when you are drawing. I might have told the story, but it's a good story. There's a technique when you go to art class when you have a blank canvas. And sometimes a blank canvas is just really scary to deal with. And so the trick when they teach you in art class is draw a squiggle. Just draw a line, just one tiny line on your piece of paper. And it can be anything, just whatever. Draw a squiggle of any kind.

And what happens is once you have something on the paper, now your brain goes, okay, what is that squiggle? And it forces your brain to sort of figure it out. It says, okay, I have something now, but what is the thing I have? The whole idea of a squiggle is it's not something you plan. You're just doing whatever. And then your brain has to work around what is the squiggle. And by trying to figure out what the squiggle is, you start to sort of get an idea.

And I think a lot of speed creativity is that, which is your brain needs something to work off of. If you have either nothing to work off of or the same thing you always have, it's hard for your brain to get going. You know, that the reason that the blank page is so intimidating is there's no clues. There's nothing there. So the big trick for trying to be creative is you can't grab onto nothing. So what you need to do is you need to find a way to get something. Now there's a couple ways to do this. One way I talk about sometimes is using a random factor of just thinking of something that's not at all connected. This is the squiggle

approach of saying, okay, I'm going to, you know, just think of a category and then think of something in that category. I'm going to think of a breakfast cereal. Okay. Uh, Frosted Flakes. Okay. How does Frosted Flakes sound? Yeah. And then that's your squiggle. That's like, okay, now I'm, now I have something that I'm thinking about and I will find that that means something to my problem, you know, because I will make some connection. Okay, well, Tony the Tiger is Frosted Flakes. It's a tiger. Maybe I want to do a tiger.

It just gets you down some path to think something. So the first technique is kind of the total random technique of I just give myself this something to work off of, even though that something means nothing normally to the problem. What I'm trying to do is approach the problem from a way I haven't done before. Now, that is fun, and I like to do that, but that is a little intimidating. It's definitely a harder way to go about it. definitely a harder way to go about it. But if you really want sort of out there, that's my favorite kind of just jump in the pool sort of approach to this. But sometimes you don't want to just jump in the pool. You want to slowly get in the pool. Okay, so the next thing you can do

is you can go back and look over what you've done and think about, for example, I'll take my comic as a good example, which is, while my comic might seem random every day, it's not completely random. There's a pattern to my comic. And what that is, is first and foremost, if I have some product that we're talking about, if there's something in previews or something that's upcoming, I tend to take art from that thing. I tend to make jokes about that thing. Like right now, as you guys are hearing this, we're doing previews for Kaladesh. Since you guys, since it's got released. So the idea right now is I'm making comics about Kaladesh.

So what do I do in the morning? Well, the first thing I tend to do is I'll go to the Kaladesh card gallery. Because we're still in previews. And that just shows all the cards that you guys know about. And so I'll just look at it and go, okay, which car inspires a joke? I'm really just looking at the art, the name, what the car does. Does something inspire me? Something that's kind of funny? And that's where my jumping off point is right now, because I know, oh, well, it's Kaladesh previews.

I want to do Kaladesh-related stuff. oh, well, it's Kaladesh previews. I want to do Kaladesh related stuff. Okay, well, let me think about that. What's kind of funny? You know, what inspires me by the car? So there, I'm doing the same kind of thing, but instead of a random factor and letting me just saying, okay, Frosted Flakes, I'm going, oh, okay, let me look at that. You know, I'm saying I'm figuring out some subjects, some subset of what I want. So, for example, in this case, I'm like, okay, well, we're in previews. So, for my comic, I want to do a Kaladesh comic. Further than that, I went one step further. I go, well, okay, now I'm going to do a Kaladesh comic. I'm going to use the art for my comic. I mean,

I could make a Kaladesh joke showing R&D or showing something else but like well I mean there's two reasons by the way um one of the reasons that the art works really well is I get access to it I can get it off my phone if I want to for example have a funny thing that involves people posing I have to think about it and shoot the picture I do do that but for example if you see me every once while I'll do R&D jokes and this is the why in the early days I used to do nothing but the inside R&D jokes in the earliest days of Tales of the Pit, and I slowly moved away from doing that

all the time. And the reason for that is, I really have to think ahead of time for that. And I do sometimes, and part of what I'll do is if I come up with a fun comic idea, I'll take a picture. And sometimes I'll even just, I'll take pictures for other reasons, or I'll post something and then later go back and go, oh, I have this picture, can I make a comic out of it?

But the art is, and also the art is nice because the art is just pretty and it's very magic-y. You know, if I show you something that has magic art, it's a good way to do a magic comic. The other thing, by the way, is sometimes, and you also know, I tend to theme my weeks in the comics. And part of this is not just because it's nice to have themed weeks, but also it helps me.

I talk a lot about, well, I haven't got there yet, this is not just because it's nice to have themed weeks, but also it helps, it helps me. Um, I talk a lot about, um, well, I haven't got there yet, but one of my GDC talks, I talk about, um, uh, how familiarity will help you, how having some structure will help you, um, that it's easier to say I'm doing something where I know my theme than somewhere where I'm not. Well, I'll get in that when I get to that podcast. But the point here is having a themed comic just says, oh, okay, I'm doing Kaladesh art this week or I'm doing Sparks. That's the name of my little sitcom with my little figures. I'm doing Sparks this week.

Whatever I'm doing, if I have something, when I set a pattern, it just helps me. Okay, I know the thing I'm doing this week. So one of the ways to sort of help you speak creatively is you can help yourself sometimes by, if you're doing things in succession, that you can kind of group them together. This is where themes come from. There's a reason why, like my comic, for example, I do them five days a week. So there's some impetus for me to want to connect them, to make them come together.

Okay, another technique. This is a technique I use a lot in podcasting is thinking of what you've done recently. So for example, with my podcast, and then working against it. So instead of using the mark to sort of find something that, like the first version is just like give anything to jumpstart your mind. version is just, like, give anything

to jumpstart your mind. Second is, like, well, think of there's some pattern or something you want to do. The third is saying, okay, what have I done? I want to go in a different direction. I often talk about pushing the pendulum in new places. So sometimes what you want to do is, and I do this with podcasts all the time, I go, okay, well, let me think of the last couple podcasts I've done. Because what I want to do is not what those podcasts have done. You know, let's say very

recently I did a history podcast. Like from time to time, I do podcasts where I take some aspects and I go back, I look at time, and I talk about that aspect. Well, if I just did like a history podcast, I don't want to do a history podcast. Sometimes it's like really meaty design things. How do you design something? Well, if I just did a meaty design one, I probably don't want a meaty design one. I want to shake things up. And so one of the ways that I'm able to come up with podcast ideas is by sort of saying, what have I done recently? And making that the anti-squiggle, if you will. Sometimes what you want to grab onto is not the thing, but kind of not being the thing. Oh, well, if my last three podcasts were A, B, and C, okay, I don't want to be A, B, or C. Where does that put

me? And by defining your space by your negative space, it also can help you get in a new place. Now, with all this, by the way, part of what I'm talking about is I did a podcast, I did an article called Connect the Dots. I did a podcast on it talking about creativity. So my hypothesis of what I think creativity is, is the ability to take things that aren't normally connected and connect them. That's the skill, the skill of going, oh, well, if you take this application from this thing and apply it here, oh, now I'm joining them in a way that hasn't been joined before. So a lot of, when I'm brainstorming for creativity, a lot of what I'm trying to do is figure out how

to make connective tissues, how to connect things. So another way to do this, so option number four, so one is the random jumpstart, two is the sort of thinking and themes of where you want to go. Three is sort of the negative space of saying, well, where have I gone? Let me find opposite. So fourth is what I call the connectivity model. So for example, there's a very common thing when you're doing jokes. So this is a, talk a little bit about joke writing for a second. One of the things that makes jokes very funny is that when you take two things that don't connect them and connect them.

A lot of times, for example, if I'm trying to write a joke, it's how do I connect two things that don't normally connect and where's the overlap? And a lot of that's the premise. You have a news story for the day. Someone who's like Jimmy Fallon or someone who does a monologue, is you want to take the news of the day and say, okay, I want to find a fresh take on this story. Well, how can I connect this story to a different thing? How can I find the connector?

A lot of comedy does that. There's another formula that you'll see. It's a store that deals with two things that are disconnected, that don't normally come together. And the comedy is, oh, that I deal with these two disjunted things. And then the joke is how you find a connection between those two things. And there's a lot, this style of humor, there's a bunch of them. A lot of, if you know anything about joke writing, there's a rhythm to joke writing. And that rhythm is, it's a three beat.

It's like, bah, bah, bah. It's a lot of jokes. And understand that rhythm, usually it's two disconnected things connected. That's another way. It's one of the ways to do the three beat is what you find is the funniest finding the connected space between two things. Thing A, thing B, thing A and B together. And there's a lot of humor in there. Thing A, Thing B, Thing A and B together.

And there's a lot of humor in there. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is part of the way that you can get new ideas is by finding two old ideas and figuring out where they go together. I talked about in Hollywood they have what they call the three beat, which is, you know, what's your movie? Well, my movie is Lord of the Rings meets Die Hard. You know, like it's trying to say, I'm taking known successful qualities, but then I'm smashing them together

in a way that you haven't seen before. So it's safe and you should fund me because it's like these things that are popular, but it's different because I'm smashing together in different ways. So this is another way that you can get topics. So sometimes what I'll do is say, okay, what are two things that I've done that people like? Can I combine them in some way? For example, for those that read my column, there's a column that I do called

Topical Blend. And what a Topical Blend is, is I say to the audience, give me a magic topic and a non-magic topic. And then I write an article out about it. And one of the things about topical blend, I think a lot of people think of topical blends as being this crazy hard thing. And the answer actually for me is no. It actually, like, once I know two things I have to do, once I know, okay, it's about your major magic mistakes and dating, bing, bing, bing, which is the first article I wrote for Topical Blend.

Okay, well, I was like, okay, the first thing's all about mistakes I've made. The second thing's about dating. Okay, the overlap is, oh, dating mistakes. That's the cross between them. Okay, well, the mistakes I made while dating that apply to mistakes I made while designing magic cards. And therein lies the fun. It's like, okay, can I find, you know, so I literally just wrote down all the mistakes I made while designing magic cards. And therein lies the fun. He's like, okay, can I find you? So, I literally just wrote down all the mistakes I made dating and wrote down all the mistakes I made with magic and started to find parallels between them.

And that article, I mean, I'm not saying there was no challenge. I mean, there's some challenge to it, but it was, I got the idea. The article was about execution, not about what am I going to write about? The audience told me what I'm going to write about. And that one of the things that you can do, and once again, I'm giving you different ideas and different executions. This one, for example, is a little bit harder if you're not familiar with it. But once you understand the premise of how it works, it does give you nice,

clearer things. Like if I say, oh, like sometimes what I'll'll say is like I'll take podcast as my example um okay people really like when I tell behind the scenes stories and people really like when I give nuts and bolts design information oh is there something about the history of design where I can tell stories that aren't specifically they're not the stories about how to design but the behind the scenes stories that involve design. Oh, okay, that's cool. I can do a podcast on it. You can take two different things and meld them together.

So one of the ways sometimes to make it is sort of the melding option where you take two things and put them together and then find the connectivity between those two things. And this comes from my joke writing days, but a lot of times just saying, okay, I got to find the funny. Why is A plus B funny? Where's the comedy of A plus B? And there's a, there's a whole technique to sort of finding that. Like I said, a lot of creativity is finding the, finding the overlap between things.

Okay. Next, another technique you can use when you are trying to find something. And for this one, I'm going to go back to my comic. Okay, so sometimes I have a theme that I know for, you know, and I'm going to jump in. I've set a theme for the week, or I know I'm doing something, or I know the general area. Sometimes, though, I'm like, okay, I want to go explore in a different space. And this is when I get adventuresome. This is when what I call the push. So what there is, is when you give yourself a challenge.

And this is another thing that I find sometimes can be very inspiring to me is I say, okay, okay, I'm, like, rather than the audience, like, the topical blend on some level was the audience. I mean, I set up the structure, but the audience was giving me a challenge. Sometimes I'll give myself a challenge. I'll just say, okay. So, for example, the story I'll tell here is Dr. Seuss was having an argument with his publisher, I believe, or his editor. And he was talking about how children's books don't need to be wordy. And I think his editor was saying something like, no, you know, you need enough words to say what you're going to say.

And for some reason, Dr. Seuss said, you know what, no. I believe you could write a good children's book using only 50 words. You know, you could reuse the words, but with only a total of 50 words. And his editor's like, no, I just don't think that's possible. You know, like, not to do what you do, Dr. Seuss. You know, to do what you do, you need to have more words. You know, you make up words. You're all about language.

You can't do what you do with only 50 words. And Dr. Seuss said, no, no, no, I can do that. And so he took it on as a challenge to write a children's book with only 50 words. And Dr. Seuss said, no, no, no, I can do that. And so he took it on as a challenge to write a children's book with only 50 unique words. Now, obviously, he could repeat the words, but he could only use 50 unique words, meaning every time you go through the book, if you count a word, and then once he uses it once, he can use it again, but he only could have 50 unique words. So he took on that challenge. You guys might know it. It's called Green Eggs and Ham. Go count it. There's only 50 words in Green Eggs and Ham. Now there's a lot of repetition, but that was his

point, was a lot of kids' books can use repetition. And even though that book is filled with words, it only has 50 unique words. And I think part of the genius that is Green Eggs and Ham came from Dr. Seuss saying, you know what, I'm going to do this with only 50 words. I'm going to give myself a challenge. And that a lot of times what you'll find is, I mean, the theme today is a lot of creativity comes from restrictions. And that when you have too open a space, when you can do anything, that is, it can freeze you up.

You know, it's like there's too many options. And that part of sort of getting your brain in gear is getting you in some direction. So this one is one that I enjoy doing, where I just come up with a challenge. I just give myself a challenge. And it's, the thing about the challenge is, it's not even that in the end you always meet the challenge, although I try. Sometimes you'll find that the challenge you give yourself doesn't actually work. But the act of trying to do the challenge itself often will leave me down interesting paths. And once again,

remember that the challenge you're giving yourself is more to help jumpstart you. Now, sometimes you meet it all the way through. Sometimes you're Dr. Seuss-ed. You're like, 50 words, I'm in. I did it. And when I give myself challenges, I truly do try to meet the challenges. My caveat is just that just because you've given yourself a challenge, let's say you give yourself a challenge, but you come up with a really neat idea that doesn't quite match your challenge.

Once again, the challenge wasn't means to jumpstart you to get you going. That doesn't mean if you stumble upon something cool that you have to abandon it. The challenge isn't the point. The point is getting going. But one of the neat things is, like sometimes for example, I'm designing a card or set or something, and I I'm just stuck, you know, and then

what I tend to do is I say, okay, here's the challenge. I will give myself the challenge just to sort of give a parameter for it. You know, like sometimes, like for example, I know with my comics sometimes, I said, okay,

I've been doing a lot of things, actually that's more like the last one. I'll just say, okay, can you do it, you know, can I do a comic, I remember one day I said to myself, can I do a comic without words? Can I do that?

How would I do that? And I started thinking about, you know, how could I do a comic that doesn't have any words? And it went down the path. It ended up, the funny thing is that ended up, that one, it gave me words, but I didn't do it like normal. That's the one where I ended up doing like Alpha Wolf, where I showed, I showed one of the wolves, the green wolf, the green banding wolves from Alpha. And I showed a picture of that, and then I put Alpha Wolf.

Because get it, it's a wolf from Alpha. The idea was, I just labeled them. All it was was a picture, and then one caption. I didn't do any dialogue. I didn't do my normal sort of explanation, you know. I literally just captioned it. Which wasn't 100% what my challenge was when I first set out. But it was a way to think of, you know, I literally just captioned it, which wasn't 100% what my challenge was when I first set out, but it was a way to think of, you know, I mean, I ended up putting

the thing in because I needed to have the context, but the idea that I got that it was I gave myself a challenge that would just go, oh, how would I do that, you know, and that's one of the things I like is I like being able to push yourself and find ways to sort of do things because it just gets you, it gets you to neat places. And that, I know sometimes people, people seem very afraid. When I talk about like the topical blend or just coming up with challenges in my life, I'm like, oh, I would never do that. And I'm like, don't, it's, sometimes I think people think like you're putting yourself in like a straitjacket.

You're like, oh, I'll never get out of that straitjacket. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Just think like, for example, if you're exercising, one of the things you want to do is you want to give yourself resistance to whatever you're doing. That if I'm going to be on a treadmill, I want it to go fast enough that I have to work to keep up. If I'm going to lift weights, I want enough weights that it's something that is not too easy for me to do. That you want resistance. And the same is true when I'm trying to explain is that if you give yourself too easy of a challenge, if there's nothing there, you have nothing to push against.

That, you know, if I set my treadmill to, you know, the lowest possible speed, whatever, I can walk. You know, I want to put it fast enough that I have to run a little bit, that I'm actually sort of pushing my limits. And creatively, that's the same way. And I don't think most people exercise with things like, oh, no, I don't want to put this. I mean, I'm not saying you put the speed mill at faster than you can go, but you can push it at a speed that says, okay, I've got to run a little bit. I'm going to sweat. I think when you're exercising, one of the ideas is, okay, I want to work hard bit. I'm going to sweat. I think when you're exercising, one of the ideas is, okay, I want to work hard enough that I'm going to sweat.

My body's like, wow, I'm doing something. You want to do the same thing, metaphorically speaking, of when you're doing creative work, that you want to push that there. You want to have the boundaries because you want to make sure that you're able to do that. Okay, here's another thing that you can do. And once again, the reason I'm giving you all these different techniques is I'm not sure what technique works

for you. I use all these different techniques, but once again, I also wake up every day and go, okay, got to make a comment, got to do podcast. I mean, a little quick side note there. Why do I do that? Why do I wake up every day and say, okay, I have to make a comment. Okay, I have to come up with a podcast, you know, and I have a job. Like, why do I do that? And the answer is, it's mental reps. The same reason that I go to the gym and I'll work out and I'll run on the treadmill, you know, is I want to keep in shape physically, the same is true mentally. That one of the things they say is the reason, the way to keep mentally sharp is by doing mental exercise. You know, that I don't think people think much about physical exercise.

Like, oh, okay, I want to keep my body in shape. Okay, I got to go to the gym. I got to go for a walk. I got to, you know, I have to do things to use it. Your brain is the same way that if you use your mind every day, if you're pushing your mind, if you're doing your mental reps, if you're running your mental treadmill, if you're working your brain, that's the way to keep it sharp. And one of the things that I remember is, and this is the caveat, is if you're afraid that not everything you make is perfect, you will make nothing. That when you create something, a good chunk of what you create will be crap. A lot of it will be crap.

The majority will be crap. I'm very, very good at what I do. I'm a great magic designer. Does that mean that most of my magic designs are awesome? No. I make a lot of bad magic designs. Now, when doing that, like, for example, I've learned which are the good ideas. So when I turn them in for other people to look at, I'm not showing them all my crap.

You know, I've learned to sort of fine tune it. And over time, like, I produce less crap than I did once upon a time. But I still produce a lot of it. I still make a lot of stuff that go, this is no good. But the reason is, and so this is my next, leading into my next thing, is that part of the way to sort of get ideas is just come up with anything. Start getting ideas. Start generating something. And that bad ideas are often stepping stones to great ideas. are often stepping stones to great ideas. That part of what you have to get past is,

for example, one of the techniques from a whack on the side of the head is my book, Creative Thinking, which I referenced in two podcasts, I think, very recently. So go read it if you care about creative thinking. One of the things he talks about is sometimes one of the ways to get to good ideas is to come up with dumb ideas on purpose.

Like sometimes, for example, I'll say, okay, what is the worst podcast I could possibly give? Okay, what if I gave away all the secrets of the next three years of magic? I know you guys would like that, but it might be bad for me. And then I go, oh, okay, well, I can't do that. But like, that's another way to get the brain going,

you know, that sometimes a fun way to sort of figure out where you can go is by coming up with things you'll never do. It's coming up with bad ideas. And that bad idea sometimes, A, they can be funny. Like, it's fun to sort of think about what should you never do. You know, Roger Van Eck, the guy who wrote Whack the Side of the Head, it's a consultant for companies. The book is the result of him speaking, you know,

speaking about creativity at companies for years. And that one of the things he used to always do is do this exercise with people where he'd come up with them saying, okay, you guys spend all this time and energy thinking of the best things you could possibly do. Let's think of some of the worst things you could possibly do. What are the worst possible, you know,

and then that, he'd have them brainstorm on crazy bad ideas. And then what he'd say is, okay, guys, hidden inside these bad ideas are good ideas. That when you come up with something bad, that part of sort of, you're just flexing a different part of your brain. But, you know, in looking at what's the worst thing, it'll give you ideas that are different. And mostly what he's trying to say is that by pushing in different directions, you can get things that you wouldn't

normally. So one of the things I also do sometimes is I get an idea. And even if the idea is not a good idea, that's fine. You know, part of understanding how to get good ideas is a stepping stone of ideas. And don't feel like, I think sometimes people are like, I have an idea, but that's not a perfect idea, so I'll give up on it. And like, no, no, no. Your bad ideas, I mean, your ideas, they don't have to be bad, but your ideas will lead to other ideas. And even your worst ideas, even the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel ideas, sometimes can be stepping stones to great ideas. So much so that sometimes part of what you want to do is say,

okay, let me lean into it. What don't I want to do? What's the worst thing I can do? And that will make stuff. And that, um, the other thing I will do sometimes is I will do this rep thing where I'm spitting out ideas. And the idea is I just want to, I just want to come up with ideas. And that sometimes, like, for example, here's a good technique, which is I wanted, I need to get an idea for something. technique, which is I need to get an idea for something. And I do what I call the top 10 idea,

where I make a list of 10 things that I could do. Doesn't matter if they're good or bad. I just have to list 10 things. Just the list. I just have to list 10 things. Okay, I need a podcast today. Okay, let me list 10 things I could do. And the key to this exercise is it's not that they have to be realistic. It's just something. I just have to get my brain going not that they have to be realistic. You know, it's just something. I just have to get my brain going. I just have to warm up my brain. Kind of like, you know, in the winter sometimes you want to warm up your car to get your car going. And so by listing things,

by just listing 10 things, and the reason I do 10 is it's enough that I have to get beyond, like, list one thing. Donuts. I'm going to do a podcast about donuts. You know, but that's how I start. It's like, okay, I need to get beyond, like, list one thing. Donuts. I'm going to do a podcast about donuts, you know. But that's how I start. It's like, okay, I need to do a podcast.

I'm going to do a podcast about donuts. I'm going to do a podcast about junk food and R&D. I'm going to do a podcast about stupid things R&D does. I'm going to do a podcast. And then you'll notice that when you start with dumb things, as you sort of make your list, like, your brain kind of knows where it's trying to go. So it'll just start, it'll start pushing in the direction it needs to go.

You know, and what you'll find is by the, by later in the list, you'll start actually having ideas that maybe are possible. And it's not by the time you finish with 10 that you're going to have your idea. But what it will do is it'll just jumpstart your brain. It just gets you thinking in a way that your brain hadn't thought before. And that's a lot of these exercises today. A lot of them really is to say, I'm sputtering. What do I need to do?

How do I get going? And like I said, there's a ton of techniques. I'm not, these aren't all the techniques. I'm just giving you some of the techniques. But they all boil down to the same basic premise. So, you know, as I walk through different things, in the end, what you want to do is you want to latch on to something.

You want your brain to think about something. And that, in order to do that, you just need to find the technique and the way that gets you going. And the big thing to remember is that you're not... Anything you come up with, you can move on from.

That, you know, you're not, like, I can go with this thing, that's not the thing, I don't have to do that thing. And you can explore something for a little while, but sometimes you'll have an idea

and I'll walk down that path. I'll come up with a comic and I'll walk down the path of the comic. I'll get the image I need. I'll start trying to break the joke. And at some point, I might go,

ah, this isn't working. You know. And at some point, I might go, this isn't working. And that's my, I'm almost throwing Rachel off, but that's my final point today, which is don't feel because you spend time and energy going down a path that you're committed to that path. That one of the things about jumpstarting creativity is you do have to understand,

even though you're quickly trying to come up with something, that you're not, just because you choose something to start with, even if you go have to understand, even though you're quickly trying to come up with something, that you're not, just because you choose something to start with, even if you go down the path, even if you try it, that you have to be willing to give up on things if just as you start to work on them, eh, they're not working.

That you don't have to force an idea to the point of, like, it's not like, oh, I came up with an idea, it's this or nothing. You know, I will come up with jokes, and I'll try the jokes, and I'll write them down, and I'll sort of look at them, and I'll, in with jokes and I'll try the jokes and I'll write them down and I'll sort of, I'll sort of look at them and I'll, in the end I'll go,

you know what, nah, this isn't quite doing what I need it to do. This isn't, you know, and then I'll move on and once again,

that idea can be the jumping start for a different idea. Like sometimes I come up with an idea and while I'm working that idea I get a better idea. You don't, don't feel beholden

to your first idea. Don't, don't stay prisoner of your first idea. Even working that idea out, I get a better idea. You don't feel beholden to your first idea. Don't stay prisoner of your first idea. Even if that idea is a good idea, you know, be open to the idea that maybe there's even a better idea. But especially if that first idea isn't working out, you can abandon it. And that part of what I'm saying is you want to explore things and that part of exploring, like this idea, I'll get an idea and the first minute will be my idea. No, no, no. You're going to work with your idea. And part of working with your idea is figuring out, like, for example, let me lead us into exploratory design.

A lot of what I've learned about exploratory design is it's letting me do what I'm talking about today in a, I mean, exploratory design is many months, but the same kind of thing, which is I just want to spitball ideas. I have a brand new set we're going to do. I don't want to be beholden to making cards yet. I just want to spitball ideas, and I want to explore. I want to go down that path a little bit. And a lot of Exploratory Design is, well, we can do this.

Okay, guys, let's make some of this. Eh, not that. Ooh, we can do this. Hey, let's make some of this. Eh, maybe. Let's do this. Oh, I like that and that um a lot of what exploratory design is is really what I'm talking about today about what does like sort of

my my peril of today is what I'm telling you today is kind of what exploratory design is to design you need spitball time you need time to sort of generate things and come up with ideas and that a lot of that is just figuring out ways like when I start a design I talk about this all the time I want to start my design from a premise that I've never started before because I want my design to be different I want different neural pathways getting used so part of what exploratory design is saying okay when I sit down with my designers day one of the design team I want a vision I want to tell them where we're going. And the point of exploratory design is to figure out, okay, what's that vision? Where are we going? What's the basic idea we're doing? Now, I'm not figuring out how we're doing it. That's

the design team's job. What I'm doing in exploratory design is figuring out the idea I want to do. What's the vision I want to start with? And that's what I'm talking about today, which is, okay, I got to do something. I got to make a comic. I got to make a podcast. A lot of what I'm trying to do is saying, okay, let me figure out, let me get somewhere and get the idea

so I can jump off. And like I said today, like, it is telling that today I literally got my idea because I was joking with my wife. You know, it's sort of like

I couldn't get an idea and I'm like, okay, maybe my idea is about not being able to get ideas. And then I just stopped and I'm like, okay, maybe my idea is about not being able to get ideas. And then I just stopped, and I'm like, that's, I mean, like, 100% was a joke. I wasn't being serious. But then I was able to step back and go, actually, that's not a bad topic.

And ergo, we got a whole topic out of it today. So anyway, to recap, since I'm almost to school, there are many ways that you can do this. And this all is about getting something, getting that squiggle on the paper. You can start with, once again, literally a squiggle, something random. You can start with knowing an idea or a theme that you want to work with. You can work in negative space where you know what you don't want to work with. You can try to find connectivity between two ideas. You can challenge yourself to do something.

And there's other techniques. The key to this whole thing today is when you're spinning, you need to latch onto something. You need the proverbial squiggle and find a way to make your squiggle. Find a way that works for you. You know, maybe it's, maybe you, every time you have an idea, you make a list. I do this sometimes too. Like for podcasts, people suggest ideas to me and I come up with ideas and I literally have a list of podcast ideas. So sometimes I just look at the list. I go, oh, is there something here? You know, some people that that will work for them. Some people, it's a matter of, um, there's somebody they go to that just gives them good ideas and they'll say, hey,

hey, Bob, give me an idea. You know, there's a lot of different places to go. Um, some people like, you know, having some random thing, tarot cards, something that just somehow inspires them. Find your thing, find your squiggle, find out the way to make that squiggle. But that's the key. Figure out how you have the jumpstart place, the place to give you something to build around. And once you can do that, then you can do that. But just remember, you're able to throw away ideas. Not every idea has to be the perfect idea. And anyway, that is today's topic. So I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope

you enjoyed learning about sort of quick speed creative thinking. But anyway, I'm here at my daughter's school. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye bye.