A humour file is your personal collection of favourite cartoons, jokes, sayings, photographs and articles. They could be torn from magazines or newspapers or photocopies. I have maintained a file (in my filing cabinet) of favourite humour and frequently review its contents when I need a good laugh. Your humour file will supplement other items in your humour library such as books, videos, cassette tapes, books, posters and toys.
Collect photographs and for your humour file for the purpose of adding humourous captions. A good creative exercise is to regularly think of captions for photographs or scenes in real life. Ask yourself “What is going on here?” and “What incongruous or unusual things can you see?”
With the abundance of humour on the Internet, you should also set up an Email folder for good quality jokes you receive. I have been collecting jokes from the Internet for over five years, and I am now creating a Joke database to store all this humour.
A humour file is a wonderful resource for your health and stress-relief, as well as useful raw materials for your creative activities, for example, speech writing.
Jokes (Leonardo recorded jokes in his notebooks!)
Record the humour and observations of your daily life. You don’t need to rely on the humour of other people. Be more observant and listen to what people say. Look around with special attention on finding the absurdity in every day life.
Set yourself the target of finding 10 humourous things in one day. Write down the things that made you laugh or smile.
The next day, do the same but look for 20 humourous things.
Repeat the exercise for a week and see how much you have lightened up.
Return to Idea Recording Page