Take Back the Glory of Creativity from Robots and Generative A.I. with Productive Creativity Hack #2

I’m not a huge fan of this generative A.I. malarky. I think it’s a race to mediocrity. But one good thing has emerged that can help you take back creativity to where it belongs: somewhere in the recesses of your brain, waiting to be spewed forth on your desk. As of right now, that thing is hiding in plain sight.

Before I tell you what it is, I need to explain a bit of background about creativity that you probably know but it’s worth repeating in the age of this A.I. robot invasion.

You’ve likely experienced, or a least heard about, having an epiphany in the shower. The solution to some problem emerges from the quiet part of the brain and you have to yell it so you don’t forget, or write it in the steam on the glass door.

Maybe not the shower, but some ideas arrive while having a walk, or folding laundry, or doing the dishes. The idea hits you and you don’t know how it happened but you sure are glad it did.

What’s happening is that your subconscious has worked on a problem while you were engaged with your active life. Then, when you finally did something mundane (i.e., mindless), the subconscious had a moment to shout out the solution to the problem.

In fact, you can learn to do this pretty easily on demand.

The MacGyver Secret, by Lee D Zlotoff and Colleen Seifert, is a book that teaches you the step-by-step process to train yourself to use your creativity to solve problems without hardly trying. The basic premise is you present yourself the problem, consider it from a couple of angles, but don’t work too hard on it.

The trick is just to plant the seed in your brain and let yourself know that you need to solve this.

Next, you go do some mindless activity, such as a quiet walk, do origami, or do some household chore.

When you return to you problem, if not earlier, your brain will let you know the answer.

It works great for me with sleeping; many times I’ve awoken in the morning and the story problem in my novel has a solution, conjured at some point during the night.

When you use ChatGPT, you quickly learn that the better you write the prompt, the better the answer generated. What you’re doing in that prompt is presenting the A.I. with the problem you want solved and a suggestion on how to form the answer.

When you hit return, it goes off and searches it’s model to crap out a response for whatever seems close enough from its training.

You could also prompt yourself with that problem and then go for a walk. Come back in a few minutes, refreshed, exercised, and ready to have some fun. There’s a good chance the answer will be there in your mind ready for use.

There’s a good chance it’ll be better than what a generative A.I. can do.

And doing it yourself is more fun. It’s also a great use of your human creativity.

Give it a shot.