When we think about creativity, it’s usually the creativity of artists and musicians, novelists and poets. That is, people who create to express. But there’s another kind of creativity: that of designers and craftsmen, scientists and engineers. Those who create to solve problems or to invent. While these two modes of creativity aren’t exclusive, this second type of creativity, what I’m calling Practical Creativity, is defined by constraints that aren’t of one’s own making and are usually solved by putting together disparate pieces into a new, unique whole. This talk focuses on what you can do to increase your practical creativity through the deliberate practice of finding and gathering those pieces and the methods for fitting them together. We’ll look at everyday practices and methods to boost creativity, as well as how to overcome the (infinite) number of things that seem to inhibit creativity.

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