Creativity Series: Editing Ideas

Creativity is a key component of the most successful people. It requires both right brain and left brain processes. Artistic ideas, without the logic to pull them into fruition, leads to no work being created. Foster both sides of your brain to maximize creativity.

Third, and probably the most important step of the creative process is editing your list of brainstormed ideas down to a few that may work, in a logical way. You may decide which are viable by choosing based on materials you have on hand, desired end result, skills to learn, or a multitude of criteria. I generally will create a schema at this point with rules by which an idea will be chosen and which will be culled out.

Creating and using a schema to choose which idea(s) are taken further increases the probability of a successful project. Often, the set of rules that I use is based on the particular project, but you can always start with the basic question words.

• Who will this benefit?
• What is the desired result?
• When will this be completed (what is the timeline)?
• Where will the piece be created?
• Why should I make this?
• How will this be made?

What questions do you ask to help edit out ideas?