Your Way to Lateral Thinking!

Lateral thinking requires you to think outside of the usual and to push your creative spirit to the max. Unlike analytically thinking, creative thinking can't just be turned on and off, but there are ways to encourage it.

١]            Think Fast

Lingering is not the way to think laterally. Inspired thoughts come from letting your stream of consciousness pour forth quickly and without reflection. Of course, apply this only to creative thinking, not to judging people or situations!

٢]            Avoid any form of self or other criticism

Lateral thinking requires freedom to express anything. Criticism acts like a stopper to the flow and prevents expansion of ideas. Allow yourself and others to reach beyond the moon when thinking laterally.

٣]         Take care not to assume that it has all been done before.

There is always the possibility of new thoughts, new ideas and new ways of doing things.

٤]            Be Non Conformist.

Don't worry about what others will think; the moment you do, you stop thinking laterally and start self judging and potentially conforming. Allow crazy, silly, weird, unusual, outrageous, never-been-done-before ideas to pour forth un-judged. Non conformity is the concept of the moment for lateral thinking.

٥]            Keep a Record of your Thoughts.

You won't know which ones are worth revisiting until later, sometimes because you're too close to it after brainstorming, sometimes because it's simply not clear what is significant until later

٦]         Mimic

Don't be afraid to build on the great ideas of others. Perhaps they haven't pushed the ideas far enough yet; maybe you will. But don't be afraid to copy good ideas and make them better. (Nobody has a copyright on ideas.)

٧]            Avoid over analysis

As soon as you start nitpicking too much and noticing what won't work, you've left lateral thinking and started to think analytically again. Leave details to later. Leave grand visions to later too.

٨]            Question repeatedly

Is this the best there is? Is this adaptable? Is there a workaround? Be sure to ask plenty of questions, especially "what if?"

There are several ways of defining lateral thinking, ranging from the technical to the illustrative.

1. "You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper"

This means that trying harder in the same direction may not be as useful as changing direction. Effort in the same direction (approach) will not necessarily succeed.

2. "Lateral Thinking is for changing concepts and perceptions"

With logic you start out with certain ingredients just as in playing chess you start out with given pieces. But what are those pieces? In most real life situations the pieces are not given, we just assume they are there. We assume certain perceptions, certain concepts and certain boundaries. Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces. Lateral thinking is concerned with the perception part of thinking. This is where we organize the external world into the pieces we can then 'process'.

3. "The brain as a self-organizing information system forms asymmetric patterns. In such systems there is a mathematical need for moving across patterns. The tools and processes of lateral thinking are designed to achieve such 'lateral' movement. The tools are based on an understanding of self-organizing information systems."

This is a technical definition which depends on an understanding of self-organizing information systems.

4. "In any self-organizing system there is a need to escape from a local optimum in order to move towards a more global optimum. The techniques of lateral thinking, such as provocation, are designed to help that change."

This is another technical definition. It is important because it also defines the mathematical need for creativity.

"Creative thinking is not a talent; it is a skill that can be learnt"

Edward de Bono

"Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned"

Edward de Bono

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower"

Steve Jobs

"Genius is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration"

Thomas Edison

"The great composers did not set to work because they were inspired but became inspired because they were working"

Ari Kiev

"An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail"

Edwin Land

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create"

Albert Einstein

"Inventions don’t come in Eureka moments: they are the consequence of experts absorbing themselves for so long in their field that they become pregnant with creative energy: deep immersion in an area of expertise"

Michael Syed

Source I

Source II