Apr
6
Boost your Creativity into Turbo Mode
Research shows that while creativity is to some extent innate, it can be enhanced through repeated efforts to stimulate it. Here are my top 5 tips for revitalizing that old gray matter to help you come up with knockout ideas for just about anything…
Top 5 Tips to Boost Your Creativity:
1. Free your mind
Each morning as you get up, pick and focus on a completely random object with a pre-defined use, like, say a toothbrush, and come up with as many alternate uses for that object as you can in the space of 5 minutes.
2. Fuse randomly
Another way to practice your creativity is to take two seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts and combine them in new and refreshing ways. So, for example if you’re working on a brief for a shoe brand, you might try to think of some completely unrelated concepts, like say, an angel… A shoe with angel wings? Interesting.
3. Don’t limit yourself
When working on creative ideas, it is often helpful to first gather random associations, writing down whatever comes to mind. Write down the first 10 things that pop into your head, with no regard for whether or not they would make workable concepts. The point is to withhold judgment until later so that even completely unconventional ideas can come to fruition!
4. Take your inspiration wherever you can get it
In the shower, on the train, while walking your dog, having a conversation with a friend. Begin to develop the habit of seeing every interaction and everything you notice from the smell of grass to the sound of rain as a potential source of ideas.
5. Change up and rest up
Just like physical exercise, creative mental stimulation is best confined to a set period of time, otherwise it can become counterproductive. After an hour or two of working hard on your ideas, take a nap, eat a banana, go for a run, or work on something completely left brain (like taxes!) until the urge to be creative strikes again. You will return to the creative task renewed and refreshed…
Any you would care to add? (Note: this post was originally written and published by me on my former employer’s blog http://blog.openad.net/ in May of 2008. It is the legal property of OpenAd and is re-posted here with permission.)
