247: The best ways to GENERATE IDEAS (w/ Tara Roskell)

Tara Roskell is The Idea Medic, providing first aid for your idea muscle. She lives in a world where ideas are cool and creativity is king.

Tara is passionate in the belief that everybody has the ability to be creative. They just need to believe it and learn more about the idea generation process. Her mission is to make idea generation and development more accessible to everyone.

Tara has worked in the Creative Industry as a graphic designer for over 20 years, for both national and international companies. She found that when she had to do similar jobs repeatedly she would lack inspiration. This led her to explore the world of creative thinking techniques which completely blew her mind.

When she’s not freelancing, Tara can be found blogging, scribbling ideas for products and cartoons, reading books on creative thinking, walking the dog or practicing her not-so-high kicks learnt in her karate lessons.

In this episode, Tara discusses:

-The various paths she took to get to her to become a freelance graphic designer for thirteen years.

-How her fascination for idea generation came to be.

-Using random words to help new ideas to be birthed.

-At the end of your day, writing down what you did and who you talked to in order to pick out ideas.

-Having a specific goal of producing a certain amount of ideas every single day (even if they aren’t good ones).

-Her process of mind mapping and looking for Eureka moments.

-Using a website like Pixabay to use images to start generating ideas.

-How to use free writing to generate ideas.

-A recent experiment with Sandra Busby in which they tested the effects of alcohol on creativity.

-How building a habit out of your creativity (especially after 100 days) takes the decision-making process out of it.

-The importance of having an accountability, even if that means writing it down in a journal or a personal blog.

-Her hesitancy to want to put certain things out into the world.

-Getting to the first step of a creative idea within five seconds so that resistance doesn’t have enough time to stop you.

Tara’s Final Push will inspire you to set yourself personal creative challenges.

Quotes:

“Some people don’t seem to know how to have ideas, when there are actually a lot of techniques that you can use. You don’t have to sit there and wait for this Eureka moment to happen.”

“If you say to yourself that you’re going to do something for 100 days or longer, then it starts to no longer be a decision you’re making. It’s something you do.”

“I have more of a resistance to putting things out there than physically starting it.”

“Stop the resistance before it catches hold.”

“Set yourself personal creative challenges.”