Creativity in Four stages

Stage 1: Preparation

You might think creativity starts with an idea, but the truth is that ideas don't arise in an intellectual vacuum. If you want your brain to come up with innovative notions, you need to feed it materials to work with. This essential but under-celebrated stage of the process is simply called preparation and involves trying to learn lots of things. At this point, rather than searching for magic leaps of understanding, your brain is using attention, reasoning, and planning to gather information.

Stage 2: Incubation

"Then there is this important stage where you let it go," Kaufman explains, stressing that "it's really important." This stage is the one where you might actually want to climb into the bathtub or go for a walk and stop consciously thinking about the problem you're trying to solve. Research shows that letting your mind wander in this way leads to greater creativity.

Stage 3: Illumination

This is the scientific name for that classic "eureka!" moment when "connections automatically, subconsciously collide and then reach the threshold of consciousness," says Kaufman's words. "You're like 'oh my God! That's the idea!'"

Stage 4: Verification

Laypeople may understand creativity as pretty much ending with the thrilling light-bulb moment of the illumination stage, but Kaufman insists that at that point "you're not done." For creativity to reach others and accomplish anything, you need to once again use those critical thinking skills to think about your audience and craft your message or idea. "Some of the greatest creative ideas of all time can easily be lost because they're not packaged in the right way or consumable," Kaufman warns.

More: 

http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-4-stages-of-creativity.html