Creative thinking rules
January 31st, 2008
A few folks forwarded different versions of this to me: hi+low had the image, but teczo had the writeup. And it appears to all come from an NPR story about Sister Corita Kent.
She was an art teacher who influenced many creatives, including Buckminster Fuller, Charles and Ray Eames, John Cage and Henry Miller, and is perhaps most famous for the 1985 love stamp.
- Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
- General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.
- General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
- Consider everything an experiment.
- Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
- Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
- THE ONLY RULE IS WORK. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
- Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.
- Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
- “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” - John Cage.
Helpful hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything always. Go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully often. Save everything, it might come in handy later.
Love it! You can see some of her work online or check out the recent book about her work.
Subscribe via RSS 
[...] http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2008/creative-thinking-rules/ [...]
Love this. . . . .
Hi, sorry to bother, I have been reading your blog forever. Too interesting to stop! I have just started my own little blog and would like to welcome you there: writeabookwithme.blogspot.com
Please keep sharing you life and thougths, we need more people like you!
[...] Scott Berkun has a cool post on Rules for Creative Thinking [...]
[...] Via Berkun Blog. Posted In: High Concept [...]
good stuff. i like the 7 rules mike rowe has at fast company magazine this month as well.
1. Never follow your passion, but by all means bring it with you.
2. Beware of teamwork.
3. Vomit proudly and whenever necessary.
4. Be careful, but don’t be fooled–safety is never first.
5. Think about what you are doing–never how.
6. Ignore advice such as “Work smart, not hard.” It’s dangerous–and moronic.
7. Consider quitting
thanks. jonathan at http://www.theproblemwithreligion.com
[...] Ripped from the web:Creative thinking rules [...]
What a great set of guidelines - but boy, what a challenging set of guidelines for most of us to manage in our lives. I think I’ll have to work on implementing them one at a time.
Reading this reminded me of another creative thinking “guru” - Gregg Fraley. He’s recently put out a book which I found to be an interesting read called Jack’s Notebook. It’s a “business fable” and teaches creative problem solving (CPS), a fundamental business skill. I found it to be a real page turner, which is unusual in a business book.
You may have heard of it already, but just in case . . .