How Do You Get Creative?

There’s a significant focus in the legal industry these days to get creative when it comes to designing a better legal business and a better legal practice. Leaders recognize that imitating their peers’ solutions may keep them in the game, but won’t help them win. Everyone is trying to come up with something new, something different, something wow. And in the legal world where caution and realism abound, the starting point for any new idea should be as un-cautious and un-realistic as possible. Plenty of people will chip in to trim a bold idea into a realistic one, so you might as well start big. That way there’s plenty left over after you’re done trimming.

So I’m wondering: How do you get your mind out of the daily grind and into a world of new? What tools or tricks do you use to stretch your mental muscles? In short, how do you get creative?

One of my off-the-beaten-path sources of inspiration comes from Good Morning Silicon Valley, a daily email newsletter sharing all the juicy gossip in ‘the valley,’ from news about companies like Google and Apple to sneak peeks into new start-ups that are beginning to change the marketplace. The coolest part of this newsletter, though, is it’s Off Topic section at the end, with links to creative, wild, and fascinating stories, images, and news. Today’s links included a story about public art that’s revitalizing downtown Detroit, a science report on how sleep evolved from two chunks to one, and a video of how 5 people with snowshoes and 3 hours to spare created a masterpiece.