We’re on a bit of a theme of things that are good for us at the moment, and today it’s all about creativity.

There’s nobody on the planet who should be missing out on creativity. It’s a big part of the joy of life. It allows us to connect with ourselves, find a place of peace, and if it’s what you’re after, disconnect with the outside world.

If, like me, your school art teacher told your parents that art just isn’t your strength and you should probably choose another subject, you might feel that creativity has no place in your life. That is not true. Even if, as in my case, my lack of spatial awareness meant I ended up with completely unrecognisable drawings - not in an abstract, I’m-ahead-of-my-time kind of way, but more in an awh, that’s cute, did your toddler do it? kind of way - it doesn’t mean you can’t be creative in other ways.

Or, in Sarah’s case, she was made to drop art at 14, even though she enjoyed it and was talented. She also showed promise in other, more ‘useful’ and ‘academic’ subjects and was encouraged to focus on them. Imagine if she had been guided to follow her creativity, the world might have experienced 4160Tuesdays much sooner.

Creativity comes in many forms, and while it can be done to make a living, it can also be done for nothing more than the simple act of doing it.

No expectation. No result required. The journey, not the destination. If you make something and it looks, smells, feels, sounds or tastes good at the end…well, that’s just a bonus.

Being creative is about the time you give to yourself to explore parts of you that aren’t usually given the opportunity to surface.

It’s a shame that in today’s busy, high-pressure, results-driven world, we generally give value to something once it’s finished, not how creating it made us feel. So if it’s not good enough, useful enough, beautiful enough, it’s deemed a waste, a waste of time, effort or money.

Will everyone who tries become a world-class artist? No, but you don’t have to be Picasso to enjoy painting. You just have to paint.

Let’s do more things because the time spent doing them is nice, and not because of what the results might achieve.

While discussing creativity with Sarah, she mentioned that one surprisingly big obstacle to being creative is… ideas. People who consider themselves ‘non-creative’ say they have trouble coming up with interesting ideas. Since we’re trying to convince people to allow more creativity into their lives, we thought this would be a good place to share a piece Sarah wrote about coming up with ideas.

This was originally written for the back of a booklet she gives workshop students. But it fits nicely here, too.

For example: Coffee shop + dodgem cars = The Fairground Café

Some people think they’ve had an idea, but it’s not actually all that creative.

For example: “Hey, I’ve seen a great coffee shop furnished with old carousel horses and flying teacups. Let’s do one exactly the same, but in Birmingham!”

They think it’s creative, but really it’s just copying and sticking it somewhere else. Not everyone is brimful of ideas but it is possible to generate them.

Every person who creates for a living gets asked by people who don’t create for a living:

“Where do you get your ideas from?”

According to James Webb Young, paraphrasing, ideas come from:

1. Studying and practising your own area of expertise with dedication, delight and enthusiasm.

2. Filling your life with all kinds of other interesting experiences to give you a huge supply of new thoughts to swirl around in the mind and join up seemingly randomly at unexpected times.

3. Leaving yourself gaps for thoughts to join up in new ways. You can’t force them to do it; they need time and space, which is why we have good ideas while we’re half asleep, or in the shower.

4. Keeping a notebook to write them down because it’s too easy to forget them.

1. Smell materials regularly. Smell other people’s fragrances.

2. Smell everything you encounter, taking care to avoid offence or arrest.

3. Read, see films, travel (when possible), talk to friends, talk to strangers, never work more than 55 hour weeks (absolute maximum) or you will damage your brain (science), take a walk or whatever tickles your physical fancy, do something new every Tuesday.

4. Loiter, with a notebook and pencil.

5. Join up two ideas, experiment and see what happens.

Take care,

Sinead and Sarah