The Best of Forge 2019

4 Ideas to Boost Your Creativity

Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and other insights from Forge

Illustration: Ruohan Wang. Originally appeared in A New Way to Recover From Creative Burnout.

We’re all capable of creativity, and we all want more of it. But we often feel robbed of the time and focus we need to actually make something.

Here at Forge, we don’t fetishize the habits of geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs. Very few of us have what author Herbert Lui calls “vast, unbroken slabs of time.” And creativity is not “a series of eureka moments,” as Anna Codrea-Rado writes. Indeed, “creating is hard, frustrating, sometimes even depressing or boring.”

Still, there are methods to help us activate our creativity and nurture our ideas. Creative work is just that: work. And like all work, the best way to master it is to do it. Many of our favorite stories at Forge in 2019 were dispatches from writers toiling in the trenches of creativity — and sharing with us what they have gleaned from its joy and heartbreak.

Creativity Can’t Be Hacked by Anna Codrea-Rado

From smart pills to intermittent fasting, from hanging upside down to cold baths, the internet has no shortage of creativity hacks that promise a shortcut to inspiration. In an age where creativity is…