The term builds on the concept of Minimum Effective Dose made popular by Tim Ferriss when addressing whatever treatment or procedure: it refers to the least amount of effort, amount, including length of time, necessary to achieve a desired goal. It can be applied to a health treatment, a fitness goal and the like.

Before Tim Ferriss, I had been familiar with Pareto’s Principle, which more or less states that 20% of your efforts will yield 80% of the results. I applied it to everything from weight training to specific technical training when I was doing competitive sports. Even to work related projects… trying to provide value early on the process and maybe move onto another project when that 80% result was reached.

Regarding creativity, when I had my son, for the first few years I had little free time between full time job, commuting and family. Although I love photography and video, I didn´t have time for video, nor for too much photography. I managed to run a personal project #lunchbreak which was a series of individual portrait sessions of nine of my work colleagues, over lunch time, in a spot near the office. It spanned over 18 months since it was hard to get organised, with availability and the like. In total, less than 20 hours of work (more or less). The point is that I found the cracks in my busy schedule to find time for a creative endeavour.

Some time later, I was still yearning for something else… and I got it thanks to a mobile phone and instagram. I started an ongoing minimal project #onmywaytowork where the cracks on my schedule was my commuting to and from work. I would shoot a picture to something that grab my attention during my trip, edit very quickly and upload it to instagram, sometimes in less than a minute. I had found my photographic minimum creative output.

Similarly I have found different minimum creative outputs in other domains:

• Drawing: icons, drawing patterns in a small sticky note
• Video: a 15’’ tiktok clip
• Writing: free haiku, a tweet
• Music: a musical phrase on a keyboard or a diy fretless one string guitar (didley bow)

The whole point is that they take a minute or less, very little gear and minimal skill. At this level, we are not aiming at quality, but getting started, gaining creative confidence, expanding our comfort zone, feeding our brain by learning skills from zero, acquiring the habit to be creative… Of course, if you already have some skill, maybe the benefit is in creating a body of work to show for all your creative thinking.

Some times I think that creativity is the tangible of our imagination, what I called creative thinking. Never mind the terms, just go and make something for the fun of it. And keep doing it.

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I have set up the #1minutecreativechallenge to take you from zero to 1 in your creativity quotient, be that first level based on developing creative confidence or creative habit.

Why?

Creative confidence is a necessary ingredient to use the creative superpowers we are all born with. Children have both, the superpower and the conviction they have it (or, more like, a complete disregard about such a thing), they just create all the time. Adults have a life long history of a) not using their creativity and b) believing they don´t have it.

So, instead of showing you research that proves you wrong, I just want you to get to it, one minute at a time, because it is all it takes to create the Minimum Creative Output. If you are ready to commit a total of 21 minutes of your time, (in small 1 minute units), you will have a body of work of 21 small pieces to prove it to yourself. Your first creative portfolio.

Ok, I’m not talking about quality or super-original work, just a first small stretch of your creative mind. Just a proof and the first building block of your creative confidence. After that, there will be bigger challenges to take you further in your creative path if you choose to do so.

Then, there is a creative habit you need to incorporate to your day if you want to become more creative. The challenge is setup for 21 days because according to experts, this is the minimum amount of days it may take to acquire a new habit. And it is enough to test it, and to start transforming your mindset. In sports, they normally talk about 6 weeks to see fitness changes, and I would advise you to keep going for 6 weeks if we take creativity as a muscle that needs training. However, the purpose of the challenge is to take you from zero to 1 in a 0-10 creativity scale, and 21 days is a smaller and more achievable commitment.

The #1minutecreativechallenge

1. Choose one creative domain: writing, drawing, photography, cooking, dancing (or any other)
2. Choose one specific output for your chosen domain. Here are some ideas (but you can define your own):
   • Writing:
     • Write an original thought about a topic you are passionate about (tweet size)
     • Write a haiku – a japanese poetry form composed of three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllabae respectivelly (research for more details)
   • Drawing:
     • Draw small icons of concepts you talk about all the time. You can google the word + icon and then do a freehand version of it, but the list has to be relevant to your work or interests
     • Listen to some music and doodle around it, for 1 minute. You can video record it, or take a snapshot after you have done it.
   • Photography: 
     • choose a theme of your interest and take a picture a day. No need to edit it.
     • Take a picture of whatever grabs your attention during your way to work, school or other daily journey. (see my instagram account @creativesenseiway #onmywaytowork for inspiration)
   • Cooking: 
     • Cook dinner (or lunch, or whatever) with up to 5 ingredients you already have and take a picture.
   • Dancing:
     • Play some music and start dancing. You may play the same music every time, but need to move differently. don´t worry about cool movements, choreagraphy or the like… funny movements will cover the goal, as long as they are different than previous ones. Video record (this is good for tiktok, but take a snapshot if you are shy)
3. Register your output:
   • Take a snapshot, video, or the like, so you have a permanent record of you output. Decide on one formula and stick with it
4. Share it daily in social media (at least in one of these: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok) with the hashtags #1minutecreativechallenge and #21dayscreativehabitchallenge. 
5. After you 21 days (you may skip a day or two every now and again, but make sure you create 21 items),
   • you will have completed the challenge, and I’m sure you will feel a little more creative -even if just a tiny bit.
   • This is the time to look at your body of work, put it together in one screencapture or gallery of some sort and share it with the above hastags plus #6Bcreatives.
   • You are now part of a quest to increase the global creative quotient.
6. What now? 
   • Seek out new challenges to keep developing your creative superpowers
   • Share the challenge with others you think may benefit from it, and encourage them to give it a chance. Become a Creative ‘Senpai’ (the senior student who teaches others)

Now go and use your creative superpowers!

The post 1 minute creative challenge for 21 days appeared first on Creative Sensei.

I will be sharing everything I know and learn on the way to help anyone interested to increase their creativity. That involves acquiring creative confident, creative mindset, creative habit, and creative pursuits. Together with related information I will be setting up challenges to get people from zero to 1, and then move forward on their Creative Sensei Way.  A Sensei is a master, and I am convinced we are born with the necessary abilities to become a creative master.

So, how will I know I have succeeded? Well, according to current population, I have set an arbitrary number of 6 Billion (6.000.000.000) people in order to consider my quest a success. By measuring up the number of people who use this hashtag #6Bcreative, which is to be used only once by an individual, when they complete at least one of the creative challenges I am going to put out.

Yes I know it is very ambitious and not very realistic. My first goal is roughly… get the first 6 :) I’m aware I will not be able to achieve this on my own, so I ask everyone with a circle of influence on and offline, to join me on this quest, and make yourselves known to me either by following me on social media or adding #6Bcreativesenpai to your posts… Although I would rather know who you are by messaging :)

1. The very first challenge is about gaining creative confidence, by taking one minute a day for 21 days to create something minimal and sharing it with the hashtag #1minutecreativechallenge.

Credits (and sources of inspiration):

• I was inspire to go on a long term quest by an interview of Marie Forleo with Chris Guillebeau titled “The secret to more meaning and adventure”
• I decided to make the goal uber-unrealistc after listening to Vishen Lakhiani’s Mindvalley podcast titled “Winners are not realistic”

Now go and use your creative superpowers!!

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