Thinking Inside the Box with Dr. Seuss

One of the continuing misperceptions about creativity is that it’s about no limits.

To the contrary: limits are what liberate creative thinking and creative problem-solving. They help you simply your problem so there’s a structure within which you can create.

One example of this Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat. It was written with just 50 words. Here they are:

a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you

So next time someone says in order to be creative you’ve got to think entirely outside the box, tell him that the Good Doctor recommends against it.