Notes on Creativity

At school, university, work, and now the MBA course, I have bought into the generally accepted wisdom that class notes are valuable. In class I would pull out my paper and pen and record the vital information for later study. I would soon bore of the activity and my handwriting would deteriorate into indecipherable scrawl, where the notes were not incomplete, with an array of doodles presenting mute testimony to my endeavours.
The creativity course inspired me to think about a new solution to my problem. At school I was introduced to mind mapping methods, but I found the results even less useful than my scriptures. At first I just sat in class and sketched and doodled and made short notes. The results of those first attempts were no different from the existing system, but the intent was.
Then during the next class I made a note in a random place on the page and made a circle around it. Once again nothing new, but the intention was different. Then during our first class interview, I drew a clown with a sad face that represented a whole concept. It struck me then that this was a method that I could use to make notes in class. Drawing the pictures and thinking of associations kept my mind from wandering and I was continuously engaged for the entire lesson. The drawings also capture a lot more information than my incomplete notes ever did.
What I have learnt from this is that creativity is stimulated by actively working to satisfy some need. The solution presented itself. Engage the problem, free of fear and judgement.