Nope. The most effective habit of highly creative people is persistence, the ability to work and work and work while resisting burn-out.<p>The best graphic designers I’ve ever met would put in 8-10 hour days, then go home and work on their personal projects. It was effective, they all had <i>at least</i> 3 AIGA awards and about 10 HOW awards, each.
The article left out the following quote of Albert Einstein:<p>“<i>I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind</i>”
Unplugging and just staring at the wall for a couple of hours alone is good for creativity. It tends to lead to a good mental environment for "image streaming". "Image Streaming" is watching a movie in your mind made up of as many memories and things you can imagine pieced together, usually focused on a particular topic. It's basically a way to access the enormous power of the right-side of the brain.
Ok, maybe its not #1, but it is important.<p>Newton did his best work hiding out in his country house during Plague season.<p>Einsteid flourished in a Patent office - nobody bothered him much, he could spend all day thinking.
Actually, I've found that the "Top idea in mind" is how I do it, and figured someone would have mentioned it already.<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html</a><p>I just never put a name into it, until I read that essay. When you mull over something in your mind all the time, you're bound to come up with something as you get more new pieces of information in your day to day life.
I think the fact that most historically creative people were nite owls, and the fact they score better on iq tests (see <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200911/intelligence-the-evolution-night-owls" rel="nofollow">http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200911/intelligence-...</a>) could be linked to the solitude that inevitably happens when you're up late.
I think solitude and deep thinking time are crucially important to programming. However, I have been becoming more and more aware that programming is also <i>performance</i> art (audience of our peers), by which I mean that programming is also a social activity.<p>In order to be appreciated, it must be shared.
Might I recommend: David Bohm wrote a very accessible book on creativity--what it is, how it works, etc.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Routledge-Classics-David-Bohm/dp/0415336406/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Routledge-Classics-David-Bo...</a>
I love this idea that somehow creative people are somehow "special"; I really like the articles preface of "Creativity is a nebulous, murky topic that fascinates me endlessly — how does it work? What habits to creative people do that makes them so successful at creativity?"<p>Here is a good interview with Craig Wynett ("Chief Creativity Officer") at P&G, in which he attempts to explain how they at P&G are trying to approach creativity from a scientific approach:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBJ9pda7TA" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBJ9pda7TA</a><p>In my opinion, cognitive science will be a huge topic in marketing in the years to come.
Really? I don't think so. Some of the coolest ideas I've ever had have come during discussions with friends. I'm most productive when I'm alone, but rarely do I have creative ideas by myself.
The article notes that solitude should be balanced with participation and awareness of one's space. Upon reading that, I realized that's why sites like HN are so valuable to me: I get both without much hassle.
I resonate with the article. As I've grown in the practice of tranquil and contemplative solitude, my creativity has grown. "Creation comes from within, inspiration comes from without."
This is also called "flow" or being "in the zone" -- focusing on one thing, intensely, without interruptions. It's one more reason to lump programming in with the other creative arts.
to a good extent, creativity == (ability to generate alternatives && identify / pick out the best)<p>and i believe 'ability to generating alternatives' is one of the most important issue here, as often times, most / all existing solutions to a problem have failed or are poor, and it is then required of a 'creative' person to come up with alternatives - obviously the bonus is when the best is picked from these alternatives.