Creativity Tips: Listen to Lincoln

In honor of Presidents' Day, today's creativity tip comes from Abraham Lincoln:

Often an idea would occur to me which seemed to have force ... I never let one of those ideas escape me, but wrote it on a scrap of paper and put it in that drawer. In that way I saved my best thoughts on the subject, and, you know, such things often come in a kind of intuitive way more clearly than if one were to sit down and deliberately reason them out.

Lincoln is talking about drive time. Shower time. Dream time. Whatever time it is when your brilliant ideas occur. Don't let them escape! Keep paper and pen with you, and file those scraps!

Scrappy ideas are often the best ideas ...


P.S. Lincoln, who wrote at the desk pictured here, is the only U.S. president to hold a patent. Talk about a creative mind ...