50 Ways To Be More Creative

FIFTY WAYS TO BE MORE CREATIVE

Whether you own a business work on your own or in a team, you need creativity. Try a few of these ideas and click on the links to find resources to help.

1. Plan a humour or game session at least once a week. Find some ideas here.
2. Appoint a humour chairman for the week. His role is to collect humorous stories, jokes and distribute same to everyone else. What about these humorous videos you could distribute at work at the appropriate time.
3. Give your problem to someone in a different industry, and ask how they would solve it.
4. Pick a random word and write down ten ways that word could be relevant to your idea, problem.
5. Change the question you are asking. Instead of “How can I decrease costs?” ask.” How can I increase sales?”
6. Reverse roles: Play the role of your child, customer or spouse. Write down your observations of yourself.
7. Solve your problem then come up with a second solution. Compare solutions. Problem solving guide
8. Take a weekend off – you and your special friend. Just relax and think about the future direction of your life.
9. Have an ideas file, into which you put all the ideas that occur to you. Note ideas, acknowledge your subconscious; it will respond and feed you. Tips for Ideas File here
10. When you are grappling with a problem, ask a child; the simple solution may be the one you’re overlooking.
11. Read a book that is not in your work-discipline. Cross association of ideas provides a fertile oasis for your imagination.
12. Read, see, hear, perform, practice humour. It is the twin of creativity. Not sure what humour is. See here
13. Do something different. Sleep on the other side of the bed, take another route to work, work Sunday, get up early – just interrupt your routine. Be different
14. Change positions: Do the secretary’s job for a day, send the clerical staff out on a sales call
15. Declare “Love Day”. On that day, no criticism, no-one can do any wrong. Global Love Day is May 1. Whether you have 1 or 364 days to go, prepare for it now.
16. Institute an “ideas box”. People who contribute ideas that are implemented are rewarded. Ideas box ideas here.
17. Decide to congratulate the next person you see making a mistake; they’re probably trying something new. Nothing wrong with mistakes
18. Write a headline about your life in the year ten years from now. What are you expecting? Will you achieve it? People who have a facelift wouldn’t do it if they knew what the result would look like in ten years time. Bad facelifts
19. Write the statement: “I am creative” and carry it for the next 30 days on your person. Read it three times a day. Tick it off once you’ve read it.
20. If you’re thinking about a problem, keep the question handy. An idea will occur, write it down. Keep writing ideas down. The solution is piecing itself together. Input! Input! Input!
21. Welcome change by preparing for it. Read overseas papers and magazines.
22. When you feel strongly about something write a letter to the editor of your local or metropolitan newspaper. Submit an article.
23. Associate an important idea with a picture of something. Sketch the picture and keep it handy. This will retain much more of the idea than writing down the idea in language.
24. Redecorate, move the furniture, paint, change the scenery.
25. Read the comics. There you will find the perfect marriage of creativity and humour. Draw a comic about your problem. Add a caption.
26. Slay a sacred cow. Is something someone once said about you years ago still limiting your creative ability.
27. Read the sporting section of the paper. It has stories of inspiration, people exploring the possible, courage.
28. Trust your idea. If you share it with others, prepare for the mockerss and ‘can’t doers’. Persist until it is your idea or throw it out or change it. Check out this quote
29. Review ideas. It might not have worked last time because timing wasn’t right. Prevailing conditions are always changing.
30. Stick your toe in. Want to start a business? Do it part time, from home, for friends, for free. See how the doing makes you feel. Build on it if you want.
31. Play a hero. How would Winston Churchill, Socrates, Superman have handled this situation.
32. Write the solution. Write down how you would like the end result to read. Work back. Read the solution as being achieved and start acting.
33. Take risks. If you’re not making many mistakes, you’re playing it safe. Today playing it safe means getting stale and going backwards. What risks should you take?
34. Get a good idea and act. The bus marked “Perfection” probably won’t stop at your stop. Improve the idea on the run. Act now, stop waiting. See this quote.
35. Make a map. Creativity is essential but so is focus. As you are creating ideas, make sense of them. Draw a map, connect, prepare the action plan.  Here is some very useful and free mind-mapping software.
36. Put something at stake. Attach a reward to a proposed target.
37. Change its name. If you are dealing with children, call them ‘bursts of energy.’ You can’t change a racing river, but you can shape it’s direction.
38. Imagine you’ve got a year to live. What needs to be done that you thought you could put off till “later”. Do it this year. Start it today.
39. Keep adding to it. Start with an idea, add input, put it away, add some more the next day. Don’t throw away yesterday’s work.
40. When challenged by a new idea, immediately write down 5 ways it will work. Enough people will tell you why it won’t. Accentuate the positive.
41. Catch creativity. Your most creative time could be the same time every day.
42. Learn when it is and be in a position to capture the ideas that flow. If it is in traffic, pull over and record the idea.
43. Review your ideas file. Sift, combine, disregard, adapt. There’s nothing worse than a stack of ideas that are not brought to mind regularly. Be careful you’re not creating an attic of ideas that is rarely visited. If an idea becomes a project, assign a deadline. This forces action.
44. Play your hunch. Don’t get caught up in logic. A hunch is a collection of random ideas that appear to point in a direction but one premise is missing. Act now and have faith.
45. Do it. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. A mistake will only add to your information on how not to do it next time.
46. Go to the pictures in the middle of the day. Work until 9 instead of 6. Change your routine. Here are some tips on changing your routine.
47. Apply the opposite. If you’re discussing customer service, start with the proposition “The customer is always wrong”.
48. Once you run with an idea, get support. Find people who also think it will work. Invite them to have a stake in the project. Involve friends and family. Create the aura of optimism.
49. If you’re dealing with an arm, ask how this will affect the body. If you’re mentally stale, ask how your physical condition might affect this.
50. If the organisation is stale, is that because one or more parts are sapping energy, affecting the whole. Cut the whole up. What are the parts? or get help!
51. Just to be creative I’ve added No 51. Have faith in a spirit working with you.

Your problem may be solved in your sleep, someone may step in or it may just go away. But whatever you do keep working on your dreams. Man has a creative power that will multiply as often as it is used. Providence follows the faithful. Happy creating!