HOW TO BOOST YOUR CREATIVE OUTPUT!

Top 4 easy habits to increase creative thinking today.

Do you find yourself running from meeting to meeting? Are you so behind on emails that you can’t catch up? As much as we believe that being busy is productive, it can actually have a detrimental effect on our ability to improve and create impactful ideas. The following habits are four of my top tricks to help nurture your creativity even when you’re busy.

HABIT #ONE: Cultivate Space

Schedule Solitude. Consider blocking off time in your day to just think and explore without interruptions. This may seem frivolous at first, but some of the most influential minds of our Century have put regular solitude into practice. The more you practice cultivating space, the easier it will become. Your schedule might only allow 15 minutes at the start, but eventually, you will find more time once you enjoy and make solitude a regular priority. Reserve the Right Time. Make sure to reserve some solitude during your brain’s daily prime time. Your prime time is generally when you are the most mentally energized, this might be first thing in the morning or perhaps later in the afternoon after a cup of coffee. When we are mentally tired, our brains are most likely not able to process new information easily. Exploration of new creative ideas will take brainpower, so make sure some of your prime time is reserved for you to think and process new information.

 

HABIT #TWO: Consume NEW Content

Our brains can spark ideas from all sorts of references. When we consume new concepts, our brains are able to explore new avenues in which to solve problems in a new way. Learning can have a huge impact on our ability to grow our critical thinking skills which are essential for creativity. You never know when or from what, your next inspiration can spark! Make time for NEW content:
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Music / Art
  • Online Learning

 

HABIT #THREE: Give Yourself Permission to Explore

Do you find yourself only exploring or executing an idea if you think it is absolutely perfect? It’s time to put down the pen and arm yourself with the mighty pencil. Exploration is the key to creativity. In order to say yes to a GREAT IDEA, you must first say no to others. Refinement should only come after you have explored a multitude of options. There’s a reason why artists stencil in their composition before they place the paint. Why don’t we consider adopting this habit into our professional lives? Give yourself permission to explore. After all, how much exploration did it take before Thomas Edison created the lightbulb? Capture Ideas. Write down, record, or type out all ideas that come to you throughout the day. Never judge an idea before you write it down, this defeats the purpose. Remember refinement comes only after exploration. Once you start entertaining new ideas, they will come more easily and more frequently. Filter & Categorize. At the end of the day, review your ideas (again don’t judge), save all of your ideas, and categorize them in corresponding files. These can be by business, client, or event – do what works for you and makes sense for your business. The purpose of this practice is to get used to saving and encouraging new ideas. Once you need an idea for a particular project, you will be happy you have plenty of creative references that are categorized and waiting for you to revisit. It’s much easier to reference creative ideas that you’ve been working on building on a daily basis than to force creative genius when the pressure is on. Now you are able to judge which idea is the best for that particular challenge, and if no ideas are appropriate for the challenge at hand, then reviewing these ideas will help your mind spark up a whole new solution. It’s a win-win!

 

HABIT #FOUR: Be Flexible

Planning and scheduling are imperative tools for any business, however, be careful not to limit yourself to only execute the plan you have at hand, you may be missing out on any creative solutions along the way. Instead, plan for creativity in your plan. Give yourself permission to be flexible if and when a new idea arises while you are executing a certain plan. Creative thinking won’t derail progress, but it just might give you the additional oomph you need for your plan to be successful.

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