You may not consider yourself to be a “creative person” and nothing you do requires any artistry. However, almost every job (that doesn’t have you doing mindless, repetitive tasks) presents challenges and obstacles that require a creative idea or solution. A salesperson, for example, can come up with new ways to market their goods/services and creative ways to pitch to clients.
Clear Your Mind
It’s near impossible to think creatively when you’re going a million miles an hour completing small tasks and answering emails. When a creative solution is necessary, staring at your problem and thinking very hard often doesn’t do the trick. You need to allow your conscious mind to take a backseat so your subconscious mind can generate a solution to the issue at hand. You can zone-out for a minute while staring at a wall, do a simple-mindless activity for a bit, take a few meditative breaths, or get up and grab a cup of coffee. The creative solution you were looking for may pop into your mind without you even trying. Figure out what works best for you so you have a trusted method to turn to when you need it.
Ideas From Outside the Office
I try to separate my home and work life, but that’s not always possible or advisable. The solution to an issue at work may pop into your brain while you’re in the shower or any time you’re not actually thinking about work. I won’t recommend working off the clock, but at least capture your idea sufficiently, so you can easily work on it next time you’re at the office.
Capture Your Ideas
Since Ideas can come at any moment, you need to be prepared to capture them. A pen and paper is great, but occasionally, you don’t have one handy. Many phones have a built-in note-taking app, so make sure it’s easily accessible. I like to type ideas into the Google Tasks app on my phone, since I can later access them from any device I’m on. I tend to have ideas when I wake up in the middle of the night, but the act of physically writing down my idea often makes it hard to go back to sleep. So, I bought a dedicated voice recorder that sits on my nightstand that I can turn on and speak my thoughts into without even opening my eyes.
Organize Your Ideas
Once you’ve captured your ideas, it does you no good if you don’t move the idea from whatever piece of scrap paper you scrawled it on, into a place that lets you expand on it. Some software that I’d recommend for elaborating on and organizing your ideas are Evernote, OneNote, and Scrivener. (Scrivener is targeted to authors, but it can be used for about anything.) They each have their pros and cons, so try them out and see what you like. For to-do lists, I like using Excel or Google Sheets because I can set up columns to organize tasks by category, due date, and even add some notes with ideas for completing the task.
Group / Individual Brainstorming
You’ve probably been a part of a brainstorming session where one person stands in front of a white board furiously writing while everyone else sits around and shouts ideas at them. It may be an old-school method, but it’s still around because it often works (though sometimes it can end up being a huge waste of time). One common pitfall is that people would rather not share their ideas because they think they’re dumb and would be too embarrassed to share. The “stupid” ideas people share are typically completely unusable, but occasionally, it’s the “stupid” idea that someone says that actually sparks a good idea in another person. So emphasize that any thoughts are not to be judged harshly and are ultimately useful.
You don’t even need a stuffy boardroom and several colleagues to brainstorm. Just write a bunch of ideas and thoughts on a piece of paper, and you might stumble upon the genius idea you were looking for.
Seek New Experiences
Having the same daily routine can be great for productivity and efficiency, but sometimes you should shake things up to gain new experiences and perspectives. This goes for in and outside of the office. Order from a new restaurant for lunch, go to a park and observe your surroundings, try a new drink (non-alcoholic of course) at your desk, chat with a co-worker you rarely see, listen to some music in a genre you don’t typically listen to, or try out a new sport or hobby. There are lots of ways to expand your horizons. Traveling (especially to different countries) can show you that there are lots of other ways to live and do things that would be out of the norm in the U.S., but may actually be very useful to integrate into our lives. A new experience that seems completely unrelated to your job just may become inspiration for a great work idea.
Glean Ideas From Other Sources
Can’t come up with a good idea on your own? Perhaps someone else has overcome a similar obstacle. Search for blogs and podcasts related to your industry, and draw inspiration from colleagues in your field.
