A Great Tool for Creativity

As many of you know, I have written a lot lately on creativity and the need for magicians to take action towards learning to be more creative thinkers of the magic we perform. We all own more magic then we need. We really do not need to buy more magic. What we do need is the ability to be more creative with the magic we already have.

An idea I have expressed in the past is to keep what I refer to as a “Creativity Journal”. This is a concept derived from my art school days and I continue to do it to this day. It is an easy idea and one that is not new at all. However, I find it is new to a lot of magicians.

The concept is to simply carry with you and keep with you a blank journal from which you can write down any and all creative thoughts and ideas. The goal is "free thinking". In free thinking there are no boundaries and there are no rules. You break down the barriers that hold you back. Any idea is a good idea and that needs to be written down by you.

It has often been said that the reason you write thoughts down is that there is power in the process. When you write ideas in your creativity journals, you are basically planting a seed in your mind. This seed can grow. It tells the mind and teaches it that it is ok to open the mind up to receiving these kinds of creative thought.

Like any exercise, the more you do, the better you get and the stronger you become. Think of the creativity journal as an exercise of the mind. It builds up the mind and makes it stronger.

But what I have found lately is a new tool that brings the creativity journal to a new level and makes it even easier to be creative and to retain those creative thoughts. There is a free website out there online called www.jott.com. It is simply a wonderful tool I have been using a lot lately in the past few months. Now before I proceed to tell you about it, please keep in mind that I am not affiliated in any way with the website nor do I get any compensation form them. It is just a very useful tool I have found that works for me and I wanted to share with you the readers.

Jott.com is a website that allows you to have the ability to send emails or text messages to yourself or anyone you want simply with the power of your own voice. The website is 100% free and very easy to set up initially. It takes only a matter of 5 minutes to set it up and away you go.

You can now be on the road at a show or anywhere and call the Jott number. It will ask you who you want to jott and you can freely state any name set up in your database. If you Jott yourself then you just talk for up to 45 seconds of anything you want. When you are done, Jott will send your voice message and transcribe it as text and send that text to your email address or even a text message on your cell phone. When you get home, you will have an email waiting for you that is everything you said in the phone but in a written format for you to print out or to save in your creativity journal. It is just that easy. You have the ability to Jott messages to anyone email you want.

This becomes a very powerful free tool if you think about it. Now I can be anywhere and if a creative idea comes to my mind, I can immediately send a Jott message to my email. When I get home it will be there waiting for me and I will have it all in a written format I can use. I no longer have to search for paper or try and recall an idea when I get home. I can do it the moment the idea comes to me.

Another way I use Jott is after a show is over. When I am in the truck I can send a Jott message home and tell about the show, how it went over, what tricks I performed and any notes I might want to have. I can do this while it is all fresh in my memory.

It is a very powerful tool for any creative thinker and I hope you might give it a try. I have been using it for a few months now and have really found the power in it to broaden my creativity and to help me in the process. Let me know how it works for you.