No matter what you’re field, if you seek to make a splash, the ability to think outside the box is essential.

Canva’s Andrew Tate found forty inspiring reads to put you in a state of mind to get ahead through creative thinking, whether your field is business or the arts.

01. Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Lazy thinking is the bane of creativity. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman talks about how there are really two different thinking systems within the brain. System 1 lets us make fast decisions based on intuition, while system 2 is more deliberative and slower. Sometimes quick, emotional decisions are great for creativity but often we need to take a set back and reassess, bringing the second system into play. Kahneman explores different exercises you can do to make sure that for any creative decision you make, or any creative thinking you do, you are accessing the correct part of your brain.

02. Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision & Reality – Scott Belsky

Throughout this series on creativity, we have always said that tenacity and determination are just as important to creativity as that initial bright spark. In Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky takes this a step further and gives you concrete strategies for realizing your idea and developing the skills to make them happen time and time again.

03. Things I have learned in my life so far – Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister is one of the world’s foremost graphic designers. One of his many beautiful books, Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far incorporates material from his exhibitions alongside his maxims for great design and true creativity.

04. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World – Steven Johnson

If you learn one thing from How We Got to Now, it would be that we have no idea where we are going, but genius, fate, and serendipity drive us there. Steven Johnson tells wonderful tales of creative genius and the curious connections between one breakthrough and another.

Full story at Canva.

Kickstart your creativity.

Graphics credit: Canva

Posted by Kate Rinsema