{"id":265,"date":"2013-03-27T20:01:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T03:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/provensal.com\/lbb\/?p=265"},"modified":"2013-03-27T20:01:11","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T03:01:11","slug":"mind-pumping-thinkertoys-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/provensal.com\/lbb\/mind-pumping-thinkertoys-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind pumping: Thinkertoys’ style!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mind Pumping: “Pumping” it’s not for muscle only…<\/h1>\n
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\"Mind<\/a>

Credit: http:\/\/bit.ly\/ZqC9Wg<\/p><\/div>\n

I started rereading Michael Michalko’s book: Thinkertoys:\u00a0A Handbook of Creative-Thinking techniques<\/a>, as a source of inspiration for a post for this blog. This book is so amazingly\u00a0rich on ideas and techniques on creative thinking, it’s absolutely dizzying. It seems that any 1\/2 page would be enough material for a good LighBulbBite.<\/p>\n

But since I had to choose, I’d like to try to summarize chapter two, titled\u00a0Mind Pumping<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The author’s premise for\u00a0mind pumping<\/i>, is that if you want to be creative, it’s not enough to have the\u00a0intention<\/i>\u00a0of being creative, you must\u00a0act<\/i>\u00a0like a creative person by going through the motion of an “idea person<\/i>“.<\/p>\n

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9 great Mind Pumping exercises<\/h1>\n
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  1. Idea quota<\/b>: Set yourself an idea quota for a challenge that you are working on; say 5 ideas, every day for one week. Having a quota forces you to actively generate ideas rather than waiting for ideas to occur to you<\/li>\n
  2. Getting tone<\/b>: Really paying attention to the world around you will help you develop the extraordinary capacity to look at mundane things and see the miraculous<\/li>\n
  3. Dukes of habit<\/b>: Instead of always doing the things the same way, deliberately program changes into your daily life: take a different route to work, listen to a different radio station each day (different newspaper), change your reading habit (fiction vs. nonfiction), switch hobby, etc…<\/li>\n
  4. Feeding your head<\/b>: To quote Gore Vidal, “The Brain that doesn’t feed itself, eats itself”. So, read to feed your mind but:\n