7 Inspiration Sources You Should Pay Attention To
Finding inspiration is a huge topic of interest for creative people. We look for angles to write about on our blogs all the time. Some days, that inspiration comes easily, and we ride the glorious wave of creativity that just seems to flow from our minds.
Other days, we wonder what train our Muse took and when she’s planning on coming back.
You could try the usual tricks to get your inspiration and creativity flowing again. Get some sleep, take a break, quit the coffee or eat almonds. Or you could look a little closer – sometimes, creative inspiration is right in front of your eyes.
Pay Attention to Your Clients
Freelancers tend to ignore their biggest source of inspiration – their clients. You can bet that if one client asks you a question, other people have the same question as well. They just haven’t asked you yet. Those people are looking for answers, so provide it and let your expertise show.
Pay Attention to Your Commentators
Click on your blog archives and select any post title. Read the comments. Were there related topics being discussed? Did the comment section go off on a tangent because people were more interested in a particular facet of the post than the point you wanted to make? Bring that lively discussion back to life and write about it.
Pay Attention to Dissension
If you notice people grumbling or showing signs of unrest, seize the moment. Unhappy people are a great source of inspiration, and some of the worst flamers can be a great source of ideas too. You can soothe ruffled feathers by explaining how they can resolve their problem or show them a new way of thinking that offers a different option.
Pay Attention to the Same-Old
Scroll through your feeds. Listen in on Twitter. Read comment sections. Eavesdrop on discussions. Take the most common, recurring subject people are harping on about – and write up something about the exact opposite. Talk of recession? Discuss boom-times. Complaints of social media noise? Discuss how you find it quiet. Zig when others zag to stand out in the crowd.
Pay Attention to Analogies
Look around you. Right now, wherever you are. What do you see? A coffee cup? A Post-It note? That’s inspiration right there. Draw lines and create analogies between simple objects that surround you. A remote control can inspire a post on how blogging is like changing channels. A highlighter can encourage a post on brightening up a site design.
Pay Attention to Sights
I tend to find a great deal of inspiration from the sights I see and the events unfolding around me. Watching people pass from a café terrace is one source of inspiration I enjoy most. How do people act and behave? What influences them? What makes them stop and look or step to the side? How can you relate that to your work?
Pay Attention to Lessons
There’s a lesson in everything, and everything relates to freelancing, business or creative work. Had a bad day? What’s the lesson? Teach that to readers. If you had a great moment, write about what worked (and what didn’t) so they can try it too. Something went wrong? Discuss ways to avoid it (now that you know what to do). Tie the lines between events and lessons to create a learning experience for readers.
Most of all, though, don’t break your head looking for that wayward Muse. The best way to find inspiration is to let her go, give yourself permission to be human, flawed and full of mistakes, and know that you’re not always rock star brilliant – and that that’s okay.
The world won’t crash in, no one’s going to laugh their heads off and life will go on. Besides, you can’t shake the earth all the time. Who’d want to, anyways? Give yourself permission to be ungreat sometimes so that people can see how fantastic you are at others.
Your turn: Asides getting sleep, enjoying break-times, swilling coffee and gnawing almonds, where do you find your best sources of inspiration?
About the Author: James Chartrand is the co-author of The Unlimited Freelancer and he’s a copywriter on a mission over at Men with Pens. Go check out his posts for inspiration today.
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I think you can draw a lot of inspiration from simple maps/plans/guides.
If you use, need or ignore one you have a starting point and want to get something, you need to find the way, want information or try to build something.
Sometimes such a tool is great and helps you out.
Sometimes you don’t need help. You know what you are doing.
Sometimes you get stuck or are lost, even though you know what to do.
At other times you just want to explore.
Just like art,work, freelancing or simply life goes.
Another great point you learn from those tools is, that after all, usabilty is everything.
I tend to read a lot in order to draw inspiration from the general zeitgeist. Picking up a book on an unfamiliar topic is even better because 1) it gives me a totally different perspective on the world from that point on, and 2) I’ve just learned something new (and it’s great to know as much as possible about as many different things as possible when networking!).
Hmm… Where do I find inspiration? Well, this very article had one sentence that inspired me into something completely different than this topic. However, the inspiration generated something web related, so … that’s great!
I suppose that the best way to get inspiration is to keep the ports open, do not establish any connections with the out world, and keep staying on LISTENING status. Good stuff comes around your ears, eyes, or any any other sense all the time. It is up to you to establish the connection to it.
@ Bogdan – Oh, come on, you can’t leave us with just a teaser like that – what’d the post inspire you to do?
@ Colin – I’m a voracious reader… and I have to admit that when I *stop* reading, I find a lot more inspiration and a more unique perspective. I think my own thoughts and write where they lead me. Kind of like I have more space to think, suddenly!
@ Smash – A map, hm? Just the thought of a map brought on about 10 different analogies and 7 new perspectives – doesn’t take much to find something to write on sometimes!
First and foremost, great article!
I find my creativity, muse or whatever you’d like to call it, from a few of those things. Browsing forums, checking comments, and I have a friend that always asks me, what I sometimes feel are “stupid” questions, since I usually can’t answer them right away. He has inspired more blogposts than anything else.
Another tip is that when you are just staring at the screen, entirely void of anything resembling creativity, grab a notebook and a good old pen, and just start writing something from the top of your mind. It might take a paragraph or two until you get on the right track and start writing something useful. Sometimes, you might not even write anything useful at all, but then you’ll certainly have a bunch of ideas on what to really write about on your site.
I thought you were just going to put up 7 individual links to FFFFound.com :3
I write a simple post about website design inspiration at http://www.microedge.co.uk/web-design/inspiration-for-website-designers.html
I find that keeping inspiration of the desihgb to meet the persona of the end user that works for your client to be a winning formula.
I find inspiration when I look at normal everyday situations upside down… literally. Take a photo of a building and turn it upside down. Or hang upside down from the monkey bars and look at the playground from a different point of view. It’s amazing to see what you’ll notice when you look at something from a different perspective. And a different perspective for me means new creative ideas.
I spend a lot of time reading on the web – and not only about my job. I lurk on many blogs, forums and on twitter.Very often, I write a short content only to read the reactions. People will raise interesting questions or comments depending on the way you write your message. Half the job of getting relevant messages is asking the relevant questions…
I use a notebook application to keep a large swipe/morgue file of illustrations, photographs and typography. Each item in the library is named, tagged and even given a color label reflecting the dominant hue of the piece. If that’s a little too techie you can also just keep a drawer in your file cabinet. I would just say make sure to keep it organized really well in order to get the most benefit. If you don’t like either of those options sites like Tumblr and Flickr come with huge libraries labeled, tagged and ready to go.
The big payoff is when I take my brainstorm results and select pieces in my swipe file that more or less match up to each of the terms and start playing. I’ll use an exercise called Forced Connections from the 1970′s book “The Universal Traveler”. Number each of your brainstorm results and the items you pulled from your file. You then can take a couple of dice and roll few numbers. Match the numbers to your list. The die picks out the combinations for you. Keep doing this until you have at least a few dozen. A lot of them wont make sense but that’s ok. You’re forcing yourself to look at the information in a very randomly. It’s a great way to take a creative block and turn it into a game—literally!
@LuisRoca
dear James,
Thanks for sharing this article with me. It is a great article. It is inspiring, we all need to pay attention to what’s happen around us, sometimes we forgot about it because we are bsuy with our career and business.
Thanks once again for your article and hopefully I can read more of your articles in the future.
Best regards,
Susie
http://www.twitter.com/susiecheng
Very cool ideas. I’m scheduling this month’s blog posts, and I’ll try to use these if (when!) the well runs dry.
Also, the idea of looking for inspiration and keeping records on it gives me some ideas for a second edition of “How to Harness a Hobgoblin.” Cool!
I love this post. There are really some good ideas in it.
I love analogy the most. Looking for similarities in two different things can be very interesting and trains your mind to be more creative.
James, You are absolutely right.The real inspirations, creativity is around us, only thing is that we must be able to fetch it.
I like the point of same-old, putting something contradictory attracts crowd also stands out from the other.
Very Inspiring Post.
Regards,
Nikhil
Good ideas. I tend to find a lot of inspiration just by going out and shopping – especially at Target or Krogers…there are so many awesome package designs out there – Target being the main collector – and actually makes me want to buy those things (I’m a designer, shouldn’t I be immune to marketing?) but I found it helped a lot to pick these items up, look at them from every angle, and even take pictures of them to bring them home.
Good article – always be listening. I grew up a devout Christian, but at one point I challenged myself to not read the Bible to see if I could hear/see/find God anywhere else. Turned out I could hear/see/find truth whenever I opened my ears/eyes/ looked for it! The truth is there, draw analogies, reapply words in new ways, discover new meanings… our language is infinite. Absorb inspiration like cold glass condenses moisture from the air on a cold morning.
Paying attention to our lessons and mistakes can give us material for a lifetime!
Informative and interesting, many thanks