Tips And Tricks To Deal With Inspiration Overload

Ever feel overwhelmed by the creativity you are surrounded by? Nat gives some tips on how to deal with inspiration overload.

Sometimes I find myself overwhelmed by ideas. By this I mean my brain finds it hard to remember, process and register all of the inspiring things I see. Do you ever have the same feeling? I’ll be browsing through the interweb, scrolling through my Instagram account, reading a book, or even wandering the streets and I can’t handle the amount of data I want to take in, store, remember and regurgitate at the right moment. This happens in both work and play situations and it was a struggle until I learnt to organise my thoughts. Here I give you some tips for dealing with inspiration overload:

Make lists

Keep a notebook with you at all times or you can use notes in your phone, your choice, whatever works best for you. Write down the sites you want to go back to, the restaurants you have heard are great and would like to visit, the ideas you want to expand on, people who you want to research. The list is endless. Make clear headers and tick off items once done. Simple. I live my life by lists, otherwise my brain would explode… literally.

Use Pinterest

I wrote about my love for Pinterest a while ago (view here) and I stand by it. As a visual tool, the ability to pin and organise boards works really well, especially when it comes to creative. I tend to divide my account into area category boards such as Travel, Foodies and Weddings (naturally!) For areas that are a bit more content heavy and I’ll use a lot, I split it down further so for design say I have boards such as Print Design, Product Design, Illustration etc and for Interiors I have Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom and so on… you get the idea.

I often refer back to my Pinterest account when starting a project, to spark interest, to bounce ideas off others on a collaborative board or even when working with new clients – I’ll set up a new board, share it with them and both of us will pin ideas or things we’ve seen that could work. It’s a quick and painless way to gather thoughts and also tap into someone else’s thought process. I have the app on my phone and the pin it but saved to all my desktop machines meaning the minute I see something inspiring I can pin it to the appropriate board. Call me the Pinning Queen (no I’m not working on commission).

Make use of your phone

This one is really pretty straight forward. We all have a phone, so put it to good use. Take snaps of anything you find inspiring from tiles to buildings, paintings to people, you get the idea. While surfing the web, snooping on Instagram or stalking looking through Facebook, take screenshots of things you want to come back to, find interesting, people you want to follow or images you want to repost. Evernote is a great app for organising yourself, writing, taking notes, saving articles etc – take advantage of what it has to offer for free! Above all keep it organised. Set up folders in your photo’s section, split up your saved sites into an order and use apps to allow you to find what you want quickly and easily. No one wants to trawl through every single snap taken to find the one you need.

Organise your browser favourites

A simple but effective way to find that site you saved quickly. Instead of ploughing through ALL your saved sites, simply create different folders in your browser favourites and save the relevant sites into the relevant folders. I know it’s not rocket science, but it works!

Organisation is the key here people. A clear mind and clear workspace will make your creative juices flow in a more effective, uncluttered manner. Good luck.

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