Though I love it when there’s a full team on a project, I’ve gotten accustomed to working solo when I need to. One of the things I learned along the way is that I shouldn’t skip steps that are normally part of my process just because I’m on my own. Case in point: creative warm-ups.
I found I often skipped warming up with a prompt or activity by myself, despite knowing it puts me in the right mindset and gets things rolling. Even when agendas are tight, I always make room for a short activity to jumpstart the creative energy with groups. It makes a huge difference to get people thinking, laughing, sketching, collaborating, and sharing before asking for some heavy lifting. A lot of the warm-ups I facilitate require some sort of interaction between people, so I started modifying them or creating new ones that I could do on my own.
9 Ways Creative Warm-Up
I like this one because it doesn’t require any print outs or special supplies. A piece of scratch paper and a writing utensil is all you need. This warm-up is based off of the idea of doing thumbnail sketches as a way to quickly come up with ideas. Here’s what to do:
- Draw a tic tac toe game on a piece of paper (or whiteboard or whatever you like). This is your canvas!
- Choose your prompt and focus. Example: Sketch 9 ways to visualize heartbeat. Or, Write 9 words to describe heartbeat.
- If you want to get fancy, set a timer and make it a sprint. Can you fill the 9 squares in 90 seconds? Or 60?
- If you want to keep pushing to less obvious ideas, try doing several rounds, where each square needs something new.
Another variation: While this warm-up works great solo, you could also use it in groups. It can lead to interesting discussions about what concepts or ideas were most frequently repeated and if anyone came up with something no one else did.
That’s it! Pretty simple. You could use it to generate ideas for a blog post, concepts for a campaign, event themes—anything really! Sometimes I do just sketching, sometimes just word generation, and sometimes both. Whether I’m designing or writing, it helps me jump into the blank page, and I hope it does for you too.
I always love hearing how people modify things to work for their situation. If you try it out, let me know!