Do It Creatively

Mark Twain is purported to have said that anyone who was only able to spell a word one way lacked imagination. I kinda feel the same way about about people who can only think of one way to do… anything. I think that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing creatively.

Whatever your job is, it’s worth doing creatively.
Whatever your hobby is, it’s worth doing creatively.

Everything from how you drive to work, to what you cook for dinner, to how to raise your kids is worth doing creatively.

Doing something more creatively simply means thinking about the way a task is normally done, and thinking about how you can accomplish it by doing things a little differently.

That might mean thinking about how you can make dinner for your family in less time because everyone has an extracurricular activity that evening and it’s important to have a meal and still have time for those other appointments.

But it might also mean thinking about how you can make dinner for your family by taking more time, because time with your family is important. In this case doing it creatively might mean having every family member prepare a menu item of their own, or setting the table together, or doing the dishes together, or packing a picnic dinner and taking it to the park to eat.

My rule for doing something creatively usually means thinking about the way everyone else does something and considering the average results of continuing to do it that way. If the results typically suck, then almost any other way is worth trying. If the typical results are actually quite good, then it’s worth thinking about what I can change to get even better results than the “usual way”.

Whatever you do — try to do it creatively.