Brighten Your Creative Spark

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Ever hit that wall where your creative tank feels bone dry? That moment when you've been grinding away at your projects, head down for so long that when someone asks for innovation, you come up empty? You're not alone.

Creative slumps happen when we get too immersed in our specialized domains. As engineers and designers, we develop expertise through consistent application of familiar tools and techniques. But that same specialization creates mental echo chambers where we recycle the same ideas and follow habitual thought patterns. The result? When innovation is needed most, we feel frustratingly blocked.

The solution lies in cross-pollination – deliberately exposing ourselves to diverse inputs that spark unexpected connections. 

This episode explores three strategies to reignite your creative spark: 

1. scheduling dedicated exploration time through activities 
2. practicing analogy thinking by mapping structures from unrelated domains to your challenges
3. maintaining a cross-pollination journal to capture insights for future reference. 

Ready to break through your creative block? Join us for practical techniques to expand your innovative thinking and approach design challenges with fresh perspective. Your next great breakthrough might be waiting in the most unexpected places – you just need to train yourself to look for the connections. 

Schedule 90 minutes this week for intentional exploration outside your field, and watch what happens when you allow your mind to wander beyond the boundaries of your expertise.

Visit the podcast blog for more information and links.

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About me
Dianna Deeney is a quality advocate for product development with over 25 years of experience in manufacturing. She is president of Deeney Enterprises, LLC, which helps organizations optimize their engineering processes and team perform...

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've all been in slumps.
It usually comes after thosetimes when we've been doing the
daily grind for a long time.
We're not looking up much, butgetting stuff done.
After a while we get tired,worn down, uninspired.
We get so immersed in whateverwe're doing that when we're

(00:20):
finally asked to pull outsomething creative or do some
sort of creative innovation,we're empty.
Our tank is empty.
Let's talk about ways tobrighten our creative spark,
cross-pollinating our way toinnovation.
After this brief introduction.
Hello and welcome to QualityDuring Design, the place to use

(00:44):
quality thinking to createproducts.
Others love for less.
I'm your host, diana Deeney.
I'm a senior level qualityprofessional and engineer with
over 20 years of experience inmanufacturing and design.
I consult with businesses andcoach individuals and how to
apply quality during design totheir processes.
Listen in and then join us.

(01:05):
Visit qualityduringdesigncom.
Welcome back to the episode.
I am back from a family springbreak trip.
This was something that wasscheduled way in advance and it
was a sightseeing trip seeingthe western part of the United
States through a train ride.
I wasn't really feeling like Ineeded a break, but it was

(01:29):
something where you know springbreak is scheduled so everybody
has time to spend together, togo do something if they want to.
What happened is I had a greattime and I ended up filling my
bucket, so to speak, time and Iended up filling my bucket, so
to speak, and I hadn't evenrealized that I needed that
break, because when I came back,getting back into work and my

(01:51):
contracts and my business, Icame back refreshed with new
inspiration and bigger ideas.
What happened to me is that Iwas in deep immersion on a
certain project and didn't evenrealize that I needed to sort of
step away from it for a whileto get refreshed.
And I know this happens to youtoo.
We get so immersed in whateverproduct we're working on or

(02:15):
within working in our industry,and we get stuck in our usual
patterns, using the same toolsand techniques all the time that
we start to develop these echochambers for our own ideas, we
start to create trends of habitsthat we just kind of follow and
we're not critically evaluatingthe ideas that we're coming up

(02:37):
with.
We're sort of in a slump or ina rut.
And then, when we have anopportunity to be creative or
are in a rut, and then when wehave an opportunity to be
creative, we're kind of stuck orwe don't have a lot of
creativity or we can feel alittle bit frustrated that we're
not coming up with the sort ofideas that we think we ought to
be able to.
So really, the question thatwe're asking ourselves today is

(03:00):
how can I reliably inject fresh,innovative thinking into my
design process, especially whenI feel creatively blocked?
Stuart Walsh wrote a book justfor engineers.
It's called Introduction toCreativity and Innovation for
Engineers.
He was interviewed by theEngineering Management Institute
for the Civil EngineeringPodcast.

(03:21):
I'll link to it in the shownotes With all of Stu's
experiences and insights.
There are three things that workconsistently for him.
One is timing activities inyour day.
Doing heavy thinking firstthing in the morning that's what
works for him.
Exercising and reading books.
When the interviewer asked himwhat are the things that work

(03:45):
the most for him, those are thethree things that he listed
Timing activities, exercisingand reading books and I
wholeheartedly agree.
I use those three things myselfFor Stu.
He realized at the time of daywhere he was the most creative
and can do his best, work wasfirst thing when he's fresh.
For you it might be a differentpart of the day.

(04:05):
Knowing that about ourselveshelps us to organize our day so
that we can maximize ourcreativity when we're feeling
the most creative.
Exercising helps to get ourblood moving.
Even taking a shower, taking awalk, doing an activity while
we're thinking about something,can help us.
And then he mentioned readingbooks.

(04:27):
All of these things that Stumentioned have to do with
scheduling activities, and Iwant to take what Stu came up
with, which I agree with, to anext step, the next step further
, because we want to brightenour creative spark.
So let's schedule somededicated exploration time.
This could be travel, like Idid with my family on spring

(04:49):
break going to museums, signingup to go to conferences
conferences that are related tothe work topics that you do now,
or maybe it's a tangentiallyrelated work topic, maybe
something that one of yourcross-functional teammates would
go to.
For example, I went to someregulatory conferences when I

(05:11):
was working as a product designengineer, or it could be a
conference that's justcompletely different.
What we really want to do is toschedule some time to see some
new patterns, problems andsolutions, so we can start
cross-pollinating ideas fromother places into our own
creative processes.
An easy thing to do, which issomething that Stu mentioned,

(05:35):
was reading books.
I enjoy reading on my own.
Reading with a friend is themost fun, but that doesn't
happen often, so I also enjoylistening to podcasts of others
who have read the same thing.
Lately I've been choosing booksbased on what podcasters are
talking about, just so I canlisten in and take a deeper dive
into the material.

(05:56):
Just so I can listen in andtake a deeper dive into the
material.
I have my own favorite bookpodcasters for fiction books,
for nonfiction books.
I can offer some of ourprevious episodes that included
a book review discussion, andthey're all books that are
related to engineering.
I'll link to all of those inthe show notes.
You can also look for authorinterviews.
They provide some deeperinsights into why they wrote the

(06:17):
book or focus in on one or moreaspects of it.
Do you have a nonfiction bookyou're reading or you want to
read?
Do an internet search on theauthor and or the book title, or
ask ChatGPT or Gemini with thisprompt.
Find podcast episodes relatedto this author and book title.

(06:38):
Then find podcast episodeswhere this author was a guest
List, all episodes by datepublished.
If there are any, I'm sure theywill come up with a list that
maybe you can explore to takeyour book reading to the next
level.
So that was our step number onetoward brightening our creative
spark, which was schedulingactivities, purposely choosing

(07:02):
things to explore our world innew ways.
So that first step will help usget started.
But then there's a One is tojust practice analogy thinking.
We can ask ourselves how is mychallenge that I'm stewing on
and trying to figure out?

(07:23):
How is that?
Like this concept from anotherfield?
One of my favorite stories wasabout a potato chip manufacturer
.
They wanted to make a potatochip that was extra crispy and
didn't have as much oil on it,and they were stuck.
They had done all the usualthings or they wanted to create

(07:44):
a new type of potato chip forthe consumer that was less
greasy.
They had to look out ofwhatever they had been doing for
years and outside of their ownfood manufacturing to come up
with a solution.
And actually it was a violinistwho came up with a solution,
somebody that played a musicalinstrument that was more

(08:04):
knowledgeable about sound wavesand how that could shake the
excess oil off the potato chipto create a crisper chip.
That is practicing analogythinking Combining knowledge
about musical instruments andsound waves to a food product to
make something different, to dosomething in a new way.
A more structured approach tothis kind of thinking could be

(08:29):
TRIZ, t-r-i-z, which is Theoryof Inventive Thinking.
I have another previous episodeon TRIZ that I'll link to in
the show notes.
Really, with practicing analogythinking, you want to map
structures and relationshipsfrom one domain to another
domain, and doing this willoften reveal some novel

(08:50):
approaches that you otherwisewouldn't have thought of.
Back to our topic ways tobrighten our creative spark.
We've talked about schedulingactivities for ourselves that
are purposely exposing us todifferent domains.
Another one is practicinganalogy thinking, where we're
starting to map differentdomains together to form new

(09:11):
ideas.
And the last one that we'lltalk about today is to keep a
cross-pollination journal or aswipe file.
Here's the thing We've been outexperiencing things and we're
thinking about things and makingnew connections.
Now we want to write it downsomewhere.
If we come up with an idea, justjot it down our initial

(09:33):
thoughts of how it might relateback to design and the kind of
things that we're working on.
Even if it's a stretch, take anote of it.
What you want in the end is apersonal repository of ideas
that you can revisit when you'refacing a design challenge.
I used to have a friend thatpreferred to do these things in

(09:55):
a Word document so that he coulddo a search on it.
You can write it in a physicalbook, keeping a table of
contents in the front to whatidea you put where, just as long
as you can refer back to itlater when you're stuck and you
need that creative spark Really.
We don't want to just focus onmore ideas, but different kinds

(10:17):
of ideas, want to just focus onmore ideas, but different kinds
of ideas.
So we started our episode herewith a problem of just not
having a pool of creativity topull from, and we talked about
three things that we could do.
One is to schedule activities.
The second thing was for us topractice analogy thinking, and
the third was to keep across-pollination journal or a

(10:38):
swipe file that we can referencelater.
What's today's insight to action?
Creativity isn't mystical.
It thrives on diverse inputs.
So your next great designbreakthrough might be waiting in
a history book, a naturedocumentary or a conversation
with someone from a completelydifferent profession.

(11:00):
So I recommend your action thisweek is to schedule 90 minutes
for intentional, non-designexploration.
Pick something from the listthat we discussed a museum, a
documentary, a walk withobservational intent.
Go in curious.
Don't force connectionsimmediately.

(11:20):
Just absorb Afterwards.
Spend 15 minutes jotting downanything that caught your
attention and one potential,even loose, connection to a
design problem you're maulingover.
I'd love to hear about your owncross-pollination experiments.
What unexpected places have youfound design inspiration?

(11:41):
Share your experience.
Just click the send us a textlink.
That's at the top of the shownotes.
And, speaking of show notes,there's also a blog post with
extra information and links thatyou can refer to.
I mentioned quite a few duringthe episode.
They'll all be there in theblog post at Quality During
Design.
This has been a production ofDini Enterprises.

(12:04):
Thanks for listening.