How to develop creativity with the association method

Why is it important to develop creativity?

Today the whole world is talking about a skill, the value of which has increased several times over the past five years. This skill is creativity.

On the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution in a world that seems to be slowly going insane, people must reimagine their role in order to remain useful and useful. Otherwise, what will we be left with after the inevitable automation and robotization of all industries and most ordinary professions?

Even if the previous paragraph is difficult to read and you don't want to believe it, read it again. Creativity in this sense is not just the ability to find a beautiful picture or choose a rhyme for the word "chew", but the ability to continue a meaningful life, the ability to live and enjoy, the ability to create and be useful.

I will tell you about several tools that you can take and apply to find new ideas right away without having an academic background in creativity. Today will be the first post of the creative series about the basic tool of a creative person.

What are associations?

Associations in psychology are the connections that arise between individual events, facts, objects or phenomena that are in the mind of a person and are fixed in his memory.

How do they work?

In the presence of an associative connection between phenomena A and B, the appearance in consciousness of A entails the appearance in consciousness of phenomenon B. The process of associative thinking proceeds in two stages: first, analysis, then synthesis. You will not be able to come up with something that did not exist before, since associative thinking produces new combinations of what was previously encountered.

What is it for me?

With the help of associative thinking, you can improve your quality of life. We use associations on a daily basis. With their help, consciously or subconsciously, we find connections between different categories and phenomena, solve complex problems, create new commercial products and objects of art, write great stories, make films and joke sparklingly.

You can use associative thinking to improve the quality of life:

for routine and daily affairs;
in family relationships;
in creativity, humor, art;
in advertising and marketing;
in sales;
when solving technical problems;
in invention;
for business development.

What associations are there?

By the similarity. The phenomena are similar in some ways: TV - box, cloud - cotton wool.
By contrast. The phenomena are opposite in some ways: black - white, laughter - sadness.
By location in space or in time. The phenomena are close to each other: thunder - lightning, painting - wall.
Causal. The phenomena are linked as cause and effect: violation - a fine, sarcasm - a fight.

How to use the association method to solve creative problems?

A correctly set task is half the battle. It doesn't matter who said it. You will need:

Formulate the first variant of the problem.
Disassemble the task into its components.
For each element of the problem, write 15–20 associations.
Reformulate the problem using the created associations, write at least 10 new formulations.
Choose the most appropriate formulation.
Implement.

How to build a chain of associations?

It only takes you six minutes. In three minutes, you need to write down on a sheet of paper a chain of associations for the word "creativity". Each next word should be an association to the previous one.

The beginning of the chain: creativity - painting - paint - pile - buffalo - meadow - … It is difficult to imagine how such a chain will end in three minutes. Let's say I got the word "colony".

You now have two words: creativity and your last word in the chain. Take another three minutes and try to create and describe a product, service, or service that combines the first and last words. There may be several options.

My examples ("creativity" + "colony"):

a special rehabilitation area, where burned-out office managers come to bed;
a thematic exhibition of contemporary art dedicated to human colonization of other planets;
auction of items created by prisoners.

How to train associative thinking?

Associative thinking, as part of the thinking of a creative person, can and should be developed. The easiest ways are to play board games with friends and practice the chain of associations every day.

The result of such work on oneself is more flexible thinking, interesting ideas for work and life. You can get results in 20-60 days. This is about how long a stable habit is formed.