While our inspiring venue does wonders to incite creativity and innovation with our clients and guests, we encourage you to continue the creative exercise beyond the Ranch confines. So when we come across something that tickles the Catalyst Ranch creative bone, we’re excited to share it.
This week we were delighted to find an online, five-part Creativity Challenge that’s both fun and informative. Perhaps you saw it too? It was designed by the New York Times. And when we say “designed,” we mean it: There are elements to the weeklong challenge that encompass research and writing, plus illustration and animation, and the highlight of it all, interactive user experience. If we haven’t sold you on it yet, here’s why we love it!
New York Times' Five-Part Creativity Challenge, with illustrations by Winkowski
Let’s just start with the biggest reason: it’s effective! This Five-Part Creativity Challenge really engages the whole brain to drive home the mission of exercising creativity.
Beginning with Day 1: Start With Some Quick Doodles, each challenge is introduced by writer Elizabeth Passarella with easily digestible context for what it accomplishes. By reading the mini-article, your more analytical left brain lights up with research and real-life examples.
But the crown jewel of it all is that every challenge activates your legendarily-creative right brain with evocative illustration by Erik Winkowski and the centerpiece of each day: an easy, guided practice. It’s here in the “Okay, now try it!” portion where, with the support of really intuitive visual and technology design, you use your brain and body to DO the creative principle. This series really makes completing challenges an active exercise.
To whet your appetite, Day 1’s doodle exercise lets you use your cursor or finger to put ideas to (virtual) paper.
**The Times must have been on the same wavelength as Catalyst Ranch, because we recently debuted a fun page of Head Start Doodles available to our visitors who pick up our brand new pocket-sized Incite Insight Notebook… We’re such influencers!
If we haven’t sold you on it yet, we also love this Five-Part Creativity Challenge because it’s short. Each part can be read in less than five minutes, and the series as a whole presents Creativity as something you can practice while you’re, say, in line at the grocery store or on your train commute.
We love this series because, clearly, it speaks to the heart of what we do at the Ranch. Creativity is the cornerstone of innovation, and it’s a muscle in every one of us that can be strengthened with exercise, benefitting your personal health and wellness in addition to your productivity in your workplace meetings!
If you don’t have a subscription, it’s possible to explore all five parts of The Creativity Challenge in the New York TImes before hitting their paywall. If you hit their page-view limit, however, they do offer a 7-day free trial. We think the challenge is a really worthwhile way to explore their try-out period. Beyond that, you’ll find additional interactive, life-improvement challenges to explore, including ones for growing friendship, exploring poetry, and more.
Go ahead and try the Times’ Five-Part Creativity Challenge, and tell us what you came up with in the comments or on social.
