When I’m out of inspiration, it feels like I’m lost or like falling in a black hole. 😨 Maybe it feels similar for you too?

So what can you do to get rid of these feelings of despair as fast as possible?

Get your creative juices flowing!

There are many things you can do to achieve that, but in this post I’m just sharing one method that works well for me.

What is the 30 circles challenge?

For this challenge you start with a sheet with 30 empty circles. You have 3 minutes to turn as many circles as possible into something recognizable.

Generating ideas quickly makes it hard to judge what you’re doing. Basically there is no time to judge. If you don’t judge, you won’t undermine your confidence. You let your subconscious brain work and you’re open to all options. This can lead to a surprising idea because in quantity there is quality!

What you draw in the circles doesn’t necessarily have to be related with what you’re designing. It can be anything. Just giving your brain this little work-out and the openness to new ideas is enough to trigger new creative ideas!

A twist

The above is an example of how this challenge usually works. The whole point of this challenge is to stimulate our creative thinking. So if you feel that you need to adapt this a bit to your needs, then that’s totally fine.

To be honest, I get super stressed with the time limit. And when I’m stressed, I can’t come up with my best ideas. So when I do this, I just fill the whole page and I don’t care that it takes me longer.

You can draw whatever you want or have a specific theme in mind when you fill the circles. It all depends of what you feel you need that day.

Instead of circles you could use other shapes. Other shapes might spark other ideas. So you could also experiment with that.

Here is an example of the 30 circles challenges where the specific theme I had in mind was “squares” and I was trying to see how circles and squares can work together.

Another twist

Instead of drawing in the circles, you could write words in them. This can help you come up with different directions you can take in your design process.

It is also useful if you want to write about a certain topic and you need ideas or different perspectives about how to approach it.

Here’s an example of how I used this challenge to come up with ideas around the word “creativity”.

“Creativity helps us imagine new possibilities. And it shows us the path to make our seemingly impossible dreams possible.”

Not sure if you think that definition is great. But I quite like it. And I would never have said it like that without those 30 circles with words. 💁‍😊

Warning!

But this challenge does give your brain a workout. After you finish this challenge, your brain won’t stop generating ideas even though we may not be aware of it. But it is very likely that within a few hours your brain will give you a surprising new idea!

So be attentive to this effect. Whatever comes up during the day, take the time to write it down and make the best use of it!

I challenge you!

The only things to keep in mind are:

Enjoy! 😊