‘Creativity Is Just Connecting Things’

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.” ~ Steve Jobs

It’s compelling to believe there’s a route to true creative thinking, and there are certainly ways to help yourself engage. But many times a great idea will just feel like it came from a simple realisation, and you won’t know exactly why. While there are certainly more creative people than me, when I’ve had my moments, they’ve often been this way. I think I’m able to look at things more creatively because I’ve done so many different things in my life and enjoy exploring what I don’t know. My first few jobs were mowing lawns and working at a supermarket before I started working in offices.

After mowing lawns for a while, I started to see how much work went into making everything the way it is in the world, and how all work contributes to the whole. And through the many different jobs that followed, I noticed similarities in almost everything I did. Once I started connecting the dots, I found that my creative work benefited. Many creative ideas that came to me early on came from connecting lawn mowing to advertising or bagging groceries to online video. Somewhere in the process of drawing a line between two things that seemed impossibly different was the inspiration for better creative work.

How do you explain your creative realisations (or not)? Share your experiences in the comments.

Steve Jobs; the quotes that touched me [Schiffner via Swissmiss]