21 Tools to Unlock Your Creative Genius

It’s hard to stay actively creative, especially when our daily lives are so mentally stimulating already. I know I’ve come home from work, done some laundry, drowned in reddit, and collapsed into sleep because I thought my mental capacity had been met for the evening.
Maintaining creativity is often the biggest roadblock for those creating fresh content on a regular basis. But, staying creative doesn’t have to be a daunting task. In fact, it can be a 5-minute activity you can fit into every day without it feeling like a chore.
Exposing yourself to different types of media and different methods of storytelling is one of the best ways to maintain a creative state of mind. Every time you see information being presented in a new way, you’ll be inspired.
I challenge you to spend the next 3 weeks actively seeking inspiration for just minutes each day. Below is a list of sites, videos, and other interesting tools you can explore for the next 21 days to jog your creative thinking and inspire you with new ideas and techniques.

In the library or bookstore, you typically just see books’ spines unless they’re featured on the shelves. Now you can look at interesting, beautiful, intriguing book covers all compiled on this website. Take a few minutes to browse the designs, colors, and images and see what appeals to you. Just click “randomize” over and over to view a good selection. And yes, this means that today you can judge a book by its cover.
At BlueGlass, we love creating infographics and data visualizations, so it’s natural that we love browsing Visual.ly. It’s full of vivid, informative graphics, so when you visit, play around with the filters and see how some of the eye-catching graphics successfully tell their stories.
Take some time to explore multimedia created by The New York Times, including slide shows, photos, graphics, and interactive content. Focus on the interactive content for an inspiration boost; this content shows current news, data, and events displayed in ways that pull your attention and communicate an issue or idea.


While it’s fun to sit on YouTube all day, it’s interesting to look back on some older videos that helped shape the country. The Living Room Candidate is a compilation of presidential commercials since 1952. Each video is not only interesting in its own right but also represents what our country valued at the time.
The world has its fair share of Ke$ha videos, but some music videos do a remarkable job of telling a story, sometimes even in an unexpected manner. This article picks out some of the best music videos made, but you don’t have to stick to these. Think of some music videos that have struck you in the past and watch them again. Here are two of my favorites: here and here.
If you’ve never witnessed sand art being made, please watch this. No, I don’t mean those plastic bottles we used to fill with sand at carnivals as a kid. This is truly an amazing form of storytelling. It goes to show that almost anything can be turned into a story.

Don’t have time to read a novel? This blog features six-word stories. That’s right. Six words. Submitters attempt to create an entire story in your mind with a measly six words. If that isn’t concision, I don’t know what is.
After reading news, blogs, and other serious media every day, it would be a nice break to explore the fictional world. Luckily, the mythical world is only a click away, and it’s in the form on an encyclopedia. Sometimes reading something so different from what you’re used to can be inspiring.
Wander away from hard news every now and then to explore some of the more unusual aspects of life. Many of these stories are ones you’d have to read to believe. It’s true what they say: Sometimes real life is certainly stranger than fiction.
If you are hankering for some “real” news, the Newseum’s “Today’s Front Pages” display features the covers of papers all over the world. Take a look at not only the breaking events in other states and countries, but also gain some insight as to what issues other countries and cultures consider priority. You can even narrow this down to the Top 10 front pages for each day.
This is my favorite site on this list. I discovered this while attempting National Novel Writing Month, and I couldn’t believe this tool existed. Try typing in the Write or Die web app for some motivation — depending on the settings you choose, it’ll hold you to a time limit and penalize you when you stop writing. How? Well, if you choose Kamikaze mode, it’ll start deleting your words!
If you hate writing creatively or you’re suffering from the oh-too-common writer’s block, this site can help. It gives you a random word to write about along with the time limit, and you just have to type whatever mini story or description comes to mind. It’s a great way to exercise spontaneous creativity and you’ll be surprised what you can come up with.
Music is very much tied to our feelings. Explore this sensation by clicking on an emotion or state of mind and listening to a playlist that corresponds with the mood you’re in.
This isn’t music, per se, but if you’re anything like me, you’re inspired when you hear the rain fall. Obviously it can’t rain every time we have a deadline, but virtual rain is certainly possible. Rainy Mood offers you the brilliant sound effects of a storm right from your computer.
Soundrop is an addition to Spotify that adds a social component to music listening. Join playlists that other people are currently listening to and even comment on what you think of the band, songs, etc. Enjoy your favorite bands with others or check out some new ones.
Turntable allows you to be a DJ in the virtual world. Join rooms based on your music preference, and if there’s a seat open, you can play a song of your choosing. People can vote on whether they like it or not, and you’ll gain points based on the votes. You can also opt to just listen and vote yourself. Either way, it’s a great method for discovering new music and enjoying songs with others.

The New Yorker’s caption contest is highly entertaining, even if you choose not to enter. People come up with the wittiest captions for the most random cartoons, so voting on submissions or reading the winning entries is a great way to witness the creation of clever humor. And hey, if this challenge is working well for you, you should submit a caption yourself!
This is a classic. What started as a joke went viral and lead to more than a thousand hilarious comments posted about milk. Scroll through some of these elaborate, surprisingly poetic, and simply funny reviews of Tuscan Whole Milk and appreciate the comedy possible on the Internet. Hey, humor can be made anywhere. (If you want more backstory, click here.)
You’ve heard about memes. You’ve seen memes. You may or may not have understood memes. Like it or not, memes are all over the Internet (and sometimes bridging into the “real world”), so glancing over a few popular ones might help you keep up with trends and get a look at what exactly they’re about. Usually they’re made for comedic purposes, but sometimes they’re actually insightful. Sometimes.
Before these things started flooding Pinterest, they were dominating Facebook as a way for users to humorously portray their feelings or things they found ridiculous about other people. Check out the source of these funny images. The best part is that a lot of them are truly making a societal critique, which is pretty impressive for a tiny ecard.

This is more inspirational than it is strictly humorous, but Matt Cutts makes a few jokes, so it qualifies. This is a great way to end off the challenge, because this TED Talk is all about how you can truly do anything for 30 days if you really want to accomplish it.
Whether you’re looking to laugh, chill out to music, or keep up with the day’s most interesting news, the above sites and tools will keep you feeling inspired in just minutes each day. The beautiful part about this challenge is that different websites can be subbed out according to your personal interests. Just make sure to keep it varied so you’re exposing yourself to a variety of media.
What sites and tools help you stay inspired? Let us know in the comments below.
Get unfiltered SEO info from Greg Boser, cutting-edge marketing and PR tips from Chris Winfield, and so much more from the rest of the BlueGlass team.The insider perspective on the latest Internet Marketing news.Get deep discounts and other cool goodies for the best software, tools, websites and conferences out there.Be the first to know about BlueGlass conferences, meetups, and surprise releases.Learn what the hottest new tools, plugins, & extensions are as our team delivers three to you each time!Oh yea, this is all FREE!