How To Be More Creative

Small-time creative pursuits—like cooking, knitting, or even doodling—can influence your overall well-being for the better.

A special podcast series featuring some of the world’s most accomplished creatives, as well as economists and psychologists who study creativity.

What is going on in our brains when we are creating?

Cultural messages tell women that making art and having children are incompatible pursuits. But science suggests that women may become more creative after having kids.

Even people of considerable talent rarely produce incredible work before decades of practice. Here’s why that is, and even more important, how you can reveal your own creative genius.

“You can write about whatever’s on your mind: petty worries, soaring plans, angry tirades… I wish I’d started long ago.”

Stretch your mind and strengthen your relationships with this simple exercise borrowed from schoolkids. Education innovator Sugata Mitra shows how.

A guide to changing where you live and work in order to nourish your creative lifestyle.

The way to tap your inner Hemingway is not how you think.

He calls it “The Why, What If, and How of Innovative Questioning.”

Because we don’t have to devote much conscious effort to the act of walking, our attention is free to wander—to overlay the world before us with a parade of images from the mind’s theatre.

Depending on the kind of creative task a person is grappling with, certain types of music may be helpful.

The exercise-induced brain changes that may be responsible for improving memory might improve the imagination as well.

The author of The Doodle Revolution explains how this common “time waster” is really a creative launch-pad.

Beautiful vistas and outdoor fun impact your brain in real ways, and the latest research is finally cracking exactly how—which means you're just trails away from becoming a better thinker.

What a silent evening with an author I admired taught me about solitude and writing well.

From the author of Daily Rituals, a weekly newsletter on routines, rituals, and wriggling through a creative life. Every Monday morning, get a glimpse into how writers, artists, and other inspired minds actually got it done.

Striving for originality can be counterproductive when it comes to achieving genuinely fresh results.

Put these in your back pocket for a rainy day.

Creativity feels like an inexplicable miracle when it arrives, and we may never be able to isolate all the variables that generate it. But, in my experience, we can reliably create the conditions to invite it.

Instead of succumbing to despair, the key is to embrace the philosophy of creating your own inspiration through curiosity and audacious experimentation.