Some tips on creativity from a book on music production that I recently read: Music Habits, The Mental Game, by Jason Timothy. Most of them are applicable to any creative activity, and that includes presentation design. Here are some that stuck with me (in random order):
- Have a note book / recording device at hand at any time to write down good ideas you will for sure forget 5 seconds later
- Kill social media distractions
- Learn what times of the day you are most creative, and don’t do your monthly accounting during that time
- Productive and creative are not the same thing
- When your brain wants to be distracted it could very well be that you are on to something difficult that nobody has ever done before, keep on pushing
- The genius just tried harder and for more years than you did
- Be yourself, find your own style, you can never catch up by imitating someone else’s
- Don’t blatantly steal, but instead, write down what inspired you in a piece of art, put it away for 2 weeks, then look back at it again and build on the attributes of the work, rather than the exact same thing
- Finnish your projects all the way to the end, and do lots of projects
- Watching more tutorials, reading more books, buying more tools will not really help if you are not applying what you learned/bought instantly. Get good at using the tools you have
- If you want to build a habit, you have to do it every day, no excuses, even if it is just 15 minutes