"This Trend Will Take Writing by Storm in 2022: How to Improve Your Creative Thinking"

"This Trend Will Take Writing by Storm in 2022: How to Improve Your Creative Thinking"

Substack is the future of email. It’s also the present. It’s because they're not just an email service. Substack is a social media platform. As content platforms become multi-dimensional, their creators should learn to adapt. The future of blogging is synergy with visual media. If you’re an entrepreneur in 2022, you have to make content.

In order to thrive in this new landscape, it's important to improve your creative thinking. The way memories are associated makes it possible to connect your ideas later. In fact, recent evidence shows that semantic memory structure—how we relate language-based concepts—is one of the biggest predictors of creativity. Creativity is the ability to produce an artifact or an idea that is both novel and useful given a particular social context.

Researchers generally believe that creativity is a two-part process. The first is to generate candidate ideas and make novel connections between them, and the second is to narrow down to the most useful one. As a memory moves from short-term to long-term storage, what’s represented in that memory is associated with existing memories (aka "schemas"), and your overall understanding of the world shifts slightly.

Understanding how our brains give rise to the creative experience helps us understand the process more deeply and fills in a critical component that is thus far missing—attention. When coming up with new ideas, a network of brain regions called the "default network" is activated. In brain imaging studies, this network shows the highest activation during spontaneous, self-generated thought—including mind wandering, which is specifically not related to a task. Governing this process is a "control network" that allows us to think flexibly, inhibit outside distractions, and pull from our memory.

Switching between the default and control networks is thought to be governed by a "salience network," which helps us to engage each one effectively. Higher creative thinking scores are correlated with greater coupling between these networks. "Constraints breed creativity." Memories are the materials needed for creative thinking. Consuming other people's ideas in conversation by reading or listening to them stimulates creativity and deepens existing associations.

To widen our divergent thinking funnel, we could try and seek out new ideas that are maximally different from our own, but this typically won't work. It’s actually better to make incremental steps outside your own filter bubble because new information must overlap somewhat with what you already know to be effectively associated and assimilated. Taking notes, making highlights, and revisiting that material when it’s related to what you’re currently thinking about is a good way to maintain and strengthen connections.

These connections can happen spontaneously, often during a period of mind wandering, when our attention is less focused, or during an engaging conversation, when we’re focused but someone else’s ideas are helping spark our own that we can share. The best state for doing creative thought work depends on the type of work, your attentional state, your mood, and how engaged you can be. In terms of your mood, it’s helpful to be in a positive affective mental state—e.g., happy and not anxious. Counterintuitively, the more we try and force ourselves to focus, the narrower our thinking may become. Mind wandering is what allows us to explore, retrieve, and experiment with connecting our memories in different ways.

Incorporating both Substack and enhancing our creative thinking skills can lead to a new era of content creation. Here are three actionable advice to help you thrive in this changing landscape:

1. Embrace the multi-dimensionality of content platforms: Don't limit yourself to traditional forms of writing. Explore visual media and find ways to synergize it with your written content. Substack provides a platform that allows you to do just that, so take advantage of it.

2. Make incremental steps towards content creation: If you're new to creating content, start small and gradually increase your output. Don't put too much pressure on yourself to produce a large volume of content right away. Start with one video a week or one blog post a week and build from there.

3. Foster your creative thinking: Actively seek out new ideas and perspectives that challenge your own. Take notes, make highlights, and revisit material that is relevant to your current thinking. Allow yourself periods of mind wandering and engage in conversations that spark your own ideas. Remember, creativity thrives when we make novel connections between existing ideas.

In conclusion, the future of writing lies in the integration of platforms like Substack and the enhancement of our creative thinking skills. By embracing multi-dimensionality, taking small steps towards content creation, and fostering our creative thinking, we can thrive in this ever-evolving landscape. So, let's embrace the storm of change and make our mark in 2022.