Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last you create what you will.” In many courses aimed at training people in divergent thinking, students are asked questions like the following:

a b c Horne, J. A. (1988). "Sleep Loss and "Divergent Thinking" Ability" (PDF). Sleep. 11 (6): 528–536. doi: 10.1093/sleep/11.6.528. PMID 3238256. In 1985, psychologist Edward de Bono wrote "Six Thinking Hats" about a problem-solving exercise that involved roleplay. He described six different "hats" a person could wear as they brainstormed new ideas: a b c d Vosburg, Suzanne K. (1998-04-01). "The Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on Divergent-Thinking Performance". Creativity Research Journal. 11 (2): 165–172. doi: 10.1207/s15326934crj1102_6. ISSN 1040-0419. Verywell Mind articles are reviewed by board-certified physicians and mental healthcare professionals. Medical Reviewers confirm the content is thorough and accurate, reflecting the latest evidence-based research. Content is reviewed before publication and upon substantial updates. Learn more. Isen, Alice M.; Johnson, Mitzi M.; Mertz, Elizabeth; Robinson, Gregory F. (1985). "The influence of positive affect on the unusualness of word associations". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 48 (6): 1413–1426. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.48.6.1413. PMID 4020605.Dyson, Scott Benjamin; Chang, Yu-Lin; Chen, Hsueh-Chih; Hsiung, Hsiang-Yu; Tseng, Chien-Chih; Chang, Jen-Ho (March 2016). "The effect of tabletop role-playing games on the creative potential and emotional creativity of Taiwanese college students". Thinking Skills and Creativity. 19: 88–96. doi: 10.1016/j.tsc.2015.10.004.

Many forms of neurodivergence are an innate part of how the brain develops and functions. While these differences may go unrecognized or undiagnosed in childhood, that doesn't mean they were not there and suddenly appeared in adulthood.The next time you’re faced with a problem, try this batching technique. You might find yourself coming up with a great solution without frustrations! Narrowing Down The Ideas But let’s approach this same problem with our “convergent thinking cap.” Disney World? Way out of budget, and most of the guests won’t want to travel that far. The new hotel down the street? That’s closer to the budget and guests can easily travel there. A big outdoor party? This is an option too, but only if the cost for lights, heating, and the tents actually did fit in the budget. Would you need a permit to hold the party outside? Would you have to worry about noise complaints? These aren't the only team members who should participate in convergent thinking, but it gives you a good idea of who you might want in the room during this brainstorming portion. As you can see, both of these processes are necessary to come to a solution. You can’t just set your heart on Disney World without considering practical factors, like budget or location. But when you do come up with an “out of the box” solution that does fit into your constraints, you’ve got a great solution on your hands. How to Effectively Use Convergent and Divergent Thinking

Olteţeanu, Ana-Maria; Falomir, Zoe (December 2015). "comRAT-C: A computational compound Remote Associates Test solver based on language data and its comparison to human performance". Pattern Recognition Letters. 67: 81–90. doi: 10.1016/j.patrec.2015.05.015. Veale, Tony; Li, Guofu (2016-04-01). "Distributed Divergent Creativity: Computational Creative Agents at Web Scale". Cognitive Computation. 8 (2): 175–186. doi: 10.1007/s12559-015-9337-9. ISSN 1866-9964. S2CID 255615490. Picture this. You’re at work and your team has a big problem to solve. Everyone sits down together in a room and starts to brainstorm. One person comes up with a solution, but it’s immediately shot down by another coworker. The next person comes up with a solution, and that’s immediately shot down, too. It doesn’t take long for the whole team to feel very frustrated and exhausted. You’ll never come up with a solution if everything is immediately torn apart!Don't have two days to come up with an idea? Split your team into two groups and let the debate begin! Well, sort of.