Find Creative Inspiration - How Sensitivity & Problem Discovery Lead to Innovation

Creative people are sensitive to problems, but that’s a good thing. Most people are confronted with a problem and they choose to ignore it. Others have smaller problems that they don’t even consciously recognize are problems. Creativity thrives when there are problems. They guide our creative behavior. They teach us what we need to do. They show us what needs or attention… and they inspire us to take action. What’s more, they effect every part of the creative process, from the creation of the initial idea, to to problem solving required to build it, to the marketing done afterwards. Creative people are problem solvers. A few weeks ago, my wife bought a trash can with automatic lid. The lid of the trashcan has sensors that know when you’re walking towards it so that it can open without you needing to touch the lid. I thought it was incredibly strange at first. It was solving a problem I didn’t have. I thought of it more as a novelty. Something that was unique, but not really useful. A few weeks later, I love that thing. It’s solved a problem so minor that I never really noticed it. I was happy to use a foot pedal to open the trash. It never even occurred to me that this was a problem. It was only after I got use to the high tech trashcan that I realized that I wasn’t happy with the old one. I’m not sure who invented a trashcan with laser technology… I’m sure their name will go down in history. Whoever it was, they were very sensitive to the problem. If they had been like me, they’d have been too satisfied with the current solution to realize that there was something better. I’m someone who’s very sensitive to seeing creativity and beauty in ideas. As weird as it sounds, that trashcan actually has deeper meaning to me. I use it several times a day, and I can’t stop thinking about how important it is to be sensitive everyday problems. Any one of us could have invented it. It was a problem that every one of us have faced several times a day. But we missed it. We weren’t being sensitive enough to everyday problems. We live in times where you can jump on Fiverr and get just about anyone to do just about anything. There is no longer an excuse to say you don’t have the expertise. The biggest barrier to using a freelancer isn’t finding them, it’s that you’d have to admit that you want to build a trashcan with lasers. As you’re creating today, think about the smaller problems you engage with everyday. Try to be sensitive to what’s going on around you. Be sensitive to the problems you might have in a project. You’re not going to notice every problem out there… nor would you want to. But you can guide yourself toward becoming a better problem finding. This isn’t to say that you stress yourself out. When you recognize a small problem, you can appreciate that its there. You can appreciate the opportunity to create a solution. Perhaps you’ll pursue that possibility or perhaps you won’t. You want to find problems, not emotionally react to them. Those are two separate processes, finding a problem and interpreting it. If you interpret problems as little more than an opportunity for you to be creative, you can enjoy the benefits of problem finding without feeling stressed. 

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