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Copyblogger Brian Clark proved once again that he is truly the master of click-inducing post titles with his Sunday post, How to Write Remarkably Creative Content.

How to Write Remarkably Creative Content: I don’t know about you, but I have been waiting a long time for a prescription in this area. Here’s the nut of his:

Look in unlikely places for connections and angles that can enhance your content. If only one aspect of another subject area meets your needs, roll like Michelangelo and get rid of the parts that don’t belong.

Okay, so as it turns out we’re not exactly in advice territory here, but the point is well-made: People with a robust conceptual matrix tend to produce some of the most interesting and astonishing content, whether they be copywriters, physicists, or philosophers.

But, for most of us, “[looking] in unlikely places for connections and angles that can enhance [our] content,” is about as strategically helpful as a friendly reminder that a genius decision can solve any problem.

We all have knowledge outside of the domain of our current problem - but how do we “roll like Michelangelo”?

One of my favorite strategies comes from musician Brian Eno and painter Peter Schmidt, who kept a set of basic working principles which guided them through those moments of “creative” pressure to which we’re all so accustomed. They’re called the Oblique Strategies.

A more pointed, if not acute, set of strategies are the IDEO Method Cards, which were created to help aspiring designers practice their lateral thinking skills under pressure.

If consulting the deck doesn’t work for you, Brian also suggests Tony Clark’s post on Creative Adaptation.

And for those times when our best laid plans go awry, as they are wont to do, the genius decision, any famous American inventor will tell you, might just come during some of that 99% perspiration.