Make The Best Use of Your Environment – Researchers at University of Minnesota proved that an untidy or messy environment can actually improve our creativity. So, start with your desk. Put on it some objects that bring back good memories or that you really like. Now move away from your desk and think about your actual place of work (which could still be home). You need an area to chill out when you are taking a break from work. What would give you some stimulation if you were to say, grab a cup of coffee? Maybe step outside into the garden or stretch out on a comfy bean bag. You get the idea.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure that you do not follow routine all of the time. You can just move, use different coloured pens or simply talk to different people.
Get In The Right Mindset – What mental states do you associate with actually being creative. What time of day does this happen, where do you have to be physically? You should build up a sort of profile that allows you to determine when you are at your most creative and then make this happen rather than simply waiting for th eplanets to align in your favour.
As a creative person or as a less creative person trying to be more so, you may experience anxiety and tension. This is normal. It may be that previously you have been over complicating things or because you are experiencing chaos and for the time being you have no direction or feel that you are not achieving anything. With creativity, very little is aligned. Often there is a random soup of ideas out of which things leap out. This is when you have to be prepared to a) capture these somehow b) take action.
To this end, always carry a notebook or some other method of capturing ideas with you.
Change Your Viewpoint – In order to be creative it can helpful to change the way you look at the world and everything in it. This doe snot mean you have to agree with all of the things you have hated until now but just trying seeing the world from a different place. For instance, imagine you are the new US president Donald Trump. You may not agree with his viewpoint but it will give you a new slant on things. Try this with a variety of people and see what happens.
There is yet another way you can do this which is to pretend you are outside of everything like a fly on the wall just observing the world as it happens. Maybe you could pretend that you are an alien landing on earth for the first time. What on earth are all of these people doing?
Taking a different position allows you to see different things that you might have been blind to or gather information or data that you previously thought was unimportant.
In fact those who specialise in customer service or marketing might be doing this already to some extent but the further you step outside of you normal viewpoint and look at things, the more useful it can be.
It can also be interesting to combine some of these methods. For instance why not sit at a pavement cafe and people watch. Try and work out why they are doing what they are doing and how they might see you!!
