Creativity Workout: 62 Exercises to Unlock Your Most Creative Ideas

Intent: To provide you with an analysis of this book to help you make a decision on whether to buy it or not. Possible Original Parts (O.P.) of this book:1. Activities: Does the book provide activities to practice the skill of creative thinking? Yes2. Quantity: Does the book provide numerous activities to practice the skill of creative thinking? Yes3. Variety: Does the book provide a variety of activities to practice the skill of creative thinking? Yes4. Explanation: Does the book provide explanations for the activities to practice the skill of creative thinking? Yes5. Examples: Does the book provide examples of creative thinking activities to practice the skill of creative thinking? Yes6. Author: Is the author considered in expert in the field of creative thinking? YesPossible Perceived Parts (P.P.)1. Clear: Is the book clear to use? From my experience, yes.2. Original: Is the book original? From my point of view, yes. What other book in the marketplace provides the same structure?3. Depth: Does the book provide depth of thought? From my experience, yes: if you put in the effort. In other words, it depends on how you use it.4. Value: Does the book provide value to you? From my experience, yes—if you put in the effort. In other words, it depends on how you use it. Test it out: Day #1: Think of a small problem and come up with as many solutions as you can in under 60 seconds. Use the book for at least 1 month and then get back to the same problem or one similar to it, and you'll notice the quality and quality of those solutions will improve. 5. Simple: Is the book simple to use? Yes6. Complex: Is the book complex to use? Not at all—although you can make it more complex to use. For example, choose more difficult words to use for the games.In summary, should you buy the book? If you want to practice your skills in creativity led by Dr. Edward de Bono, then yes.Full disclosure: I own all of Dr. Edward de Bono’s books (except for the Love of Two Cockroaches) and I have immense respect for his work (If you are familiar with this CORT program, I used his CORT #2 analysis tool for this review).Chris von Spitzer

The item arrived in reasonable time. I'm thoroughly satisfied with the item.

This book offers, essentially, a collection of ways to manipulate words randomly selected from the tables provided. The idea seems to be that these exercises will develop creativity skills that will be applicable in daily life. My main objection to this book is that no evidence is provided that this will actually work.Other objections regard how the material is presented. The Introduction seems to be a random scattering of badly-written and often crackpot thoughts about creativity, the mind, the modern world, and the brilliance of the author. It's an embarrassment. An example: he says that 2000 years ago China was ahead of the West, but they subsequently fell behind because they neglected the importance of "possibility." I quote:"What brought progress to a halt?"The Chinese scholars started to believe you could move from 'fact to fact.' So they never developed the messy business of possibility (hypothesis, etc.). As a result, progress came to a dead end." (p. 7)He goes on to criticize four major universities, including Harvard, for neglecting the fundamental importance of possibility. But he does not define what he means by "possibility," except in the already quoted "(hypothesis, etc.)." Literally, he rants about "possibility" for a full page (large print, lots of white space) but never makes clear what he means. "(hypothesis, etc.)" seems to suggest "scientific method." But he couldn't claim that Harvard neglects "scientific method," I presume. So the Introduction is pretty useless unless you need a pep talk on the wonderfulness of creativity.I don't want to waste a lot of time on this book. Let's take a close look at one "exercise," the first of the 62. If you find this valuable, maybe this book is for you. It is called "Random Input." I'll quote the "Process" section in full:"1. You clearly define your focus. Where and why do you want new creative ideas? It is important to be very clear about the focus. If you do not know what you are shooting at, you are very unlikely to hit the target!2. You obtain a Random Word from the tables--using any of the methods indicated on pages 15-16.3. You use the Random Word to stimulate new ideas for the defined focus." (p. 19)So the process boils down to two critical points: "Where and why do you want new creative ideas?" and "stimulate." I think the "focus" is generally clear enough; but what about "stimulate"? He offers six points on "The Use of the Method"; of these, four warn you off of mistakes to avoid, such as taking the Random Word as an acronym and trying to figure out the words it stand for. These are nothing much. The two positive suggestions are these:"4. You will probably need to work in concepts and values rather than simple associations.5. At every point, look out for possibilities, values and new directions. Once a possibility has emerged, pursue that possibility." (p. 21)This bears no resemblance to a step-by-step method.He then goes on to describe using the Random Word "cloak" to stimulate "a new idea for a new restaurant." In this example, he presents "Immediate thoughts" and "Further thoughts." He makes no attempt to relate these "thoughts" to the previously-described "method." He summarizes his results in two conclusions:"It is clear that two directions have emerged. The first direction is a 'theme' direction associated with 'cloak.'The second direction is to do with the concept of 'cloaked,' 'masked,' 'disguised,' or 'hidden.'" (p. 22)What he means by a "theme direction" is that the "new idea for a new restaurant" is to have a "cloak theme." His "second direction" could be more easily accomplished by checking a thesaurus under the heading "cloak."I'm trying to be fair here and not just ridicule his results. In fact, the first exercise, "Random Input," seems to be the most thoroughly developed of the 62. I haven't read most of the others; they are shorter and the first half dozen offer nothing more interesting than the first one. But on looking ahead I see one about novel writing. I'll go ahead and post this and add more comments as I get further in the book--if I do. As it is, I'm allowing three stars for, really, no good reason. The reviews here so far are as sketchy and unsatisfactory as the book itself.The first exercise constitutes an example of de Bono's "Lateral Thinking," as he points out. What's lacking here is the attention he pays to that concept in his book of that name (Lateral Thinking) which I read many decades ago. I found that book to be valuable and original, and I'd even say that I have returned to that concept on many occasions--it really affected my thinking in a positive way, and the term has become justly celebrated. Unfortunately, I think that de Bono has made a career of exploiting his early success with a series of increasingly thin and superficial rehashes on "creativity and how to get it." By all means, read de Bono's early books in preference to this one.As for this book, I was looking specifically for a book on "things to do with word lists" because a few years ago I came up with some lists of what I call "tasty words" and I wanted to use these lists in some kind of systematic way to generate ideas for stories and poems. His first exercise, "Random Input," doesn't offer much of a method. If I try to apply it to the "focus" of "idea for a new poem," I would have "a poem about a cloak, or masking, or etc." I suppose that's better than nothing. But I think that if I look over a list of tasty words with the thought in mind of "new poem," I'd get at least this much. If I take a tasty word at random, and try to force it to give me an idea of a poem, I'd essentially have de Bono's "method."This is not the first book to suggest using random stimulation to generate ideas. Most creativity books offer the same idea in one form or another. Tarot cards are a nifty way to accomplish random stimulation.Further comments will follow.

This book should have been called: "Using the power of Random Words to boost your creativity", or "Random Words, Creative Thoughts". But the chances of me buying the book with such a title would have been slim, so I'm glad De Bono did not consult me on this.This book includes 62 creativity exercises that use random words to train your creative skills. The exercises can be used for self training to sharpen your creative thinking skills as well as for producing actual creative results individually or in a group.I have used some of the methods tought in the book in creativity workshops I'm conducting and I have to say the results were very impressive. People like to use random words because it really frees them and easily gets their thougths out of the box.The usual De Bono style is evident - a bit of self praise and paranoia coupled with great in-depth insights and detailed instructions.

Great book...came in on time as promised. The condition of the book was very good, just as advertised. Very pleased.

A+

Libro molto ineterssante e utile. L'ho letto velocemente.

Good product.

I was looking into ways to improve my creativity, so I bought this book in the hope of fulfill my need. Basically the book is all about generating ideas based on random words and nothing else. The 62 exercices are all very similar in the way that you take either 1, 2 or 4 words to create association and combinaison. Those random combinaisons are not always "creative" in the way that they just don't have practical use.