I was the least creative person in every room.
My coworkers would pitch brilliant ideas again and again while I sat there with nothing. They’d get lots of praise for their creativity, and I’d be their “biggest supporter”:
I felt completely useless. When I finally forced myself to contribute, I’d either copy what they said or suggest something totally impractical.
Every creativity guru told me the same thing:
“Take more showers. Go for long walks. Find your muse.”I tried everything. I also spent hours doing dishes (my wife loved that part), bought expensive notebooks, and even tried those “morning pages” where you write stream-of-consciousness for 30 minutes, hoping creativity would magically appear.
Zero results.
Then I decided to study how the world’s most creative people actually work. Not the romantic bullsh*t about lightbulb moments, but their real daily systems. People like Steve Jobs, Dalí, Picasso, and yeah… Taylor Swift too.
What I discovered shocked me: Almost everything you’ve been told about creativity is scientifically wrong.
Turns out, creative “geniuses” just use specific techniques that anyone can learn. 🧠
So I spent 30 days testing every single method I could find. Some were garbage. Others completely changed how my brain works. I went from having zero useful ideas per week to generating more ideas than I could execute. That’s actually how Marketing Ideas was born - I had so many ideas I needed to write everything down.
Now I use 9 specific techniques that completely changed how my brain works.
Here they are:
1. Deadlines are creativity STEROIDS
Every creativity expert told me I needed more (1) time and (2) freedom to think.
Nope! The opposite is true:
Harvard researchers analyzed 145 studies and found something shocking: the right constraints boost creative output better than unlimited freedom.
❌ When you have forever to solve a problem → your brain goes into analysis paralysis.
✅ When you have clear boundaries → it switches into “breakthrough mode”.
Bottom line - all you need is a deadline.
I actually bought a $20 kitchen timer just for this. Works amazing. When I’m stuck on a problem, I set it for 30 minutes and tell myself I have to crack it before the buzzer.
But here’s where it gets interesting: the deadline must feel real.
Your brain knows the difference between “I should probably finish this by Friday” and “I’m presenting this to my boss at 2 PM today.”
I found 3 effective ways to make deadlines feel real:
💰 Bet actual money - I bet my coworker $50 I’d come up with a new tagline by noon. Had a really good idea in 2 hours.
📢 Public commitment - Announce your deadline in the team Slack. “I’ll have 5 booth ideas by Friday.” Social pressure forces breakthrough thinking.
⏰ External accountability - Tell your boss you’ll present solutions at a specific time. Make it someone whose opinion matters.
Steve Jobs had a 10-minute rule: couldn’t solve a problem in 10 minutes? Leave your desk and walk around Apple’s campus. The constraint forced rapid thinking.
I went from generating maybe 1 decent marketing idea per week to having 3-4 solid concepts every single day. All because I stopped giving myself endless time and started giving myself impossible deadlines.
The other 8 techniques that changed my career 🪄
After that breakthrough, I went down a rabbit hole testing every creativity method I could find. These 8 actually worked, and they’re part of my daily work routine now:
