5 Ways to Improve Your Creative Thinking

Everyone says that modern companies – including those which are most popular to work for – highly value innovative thinking and creativity. The problem is, how can you be creative without failing, looking stupid or repeating what others have already suggested a hundred times?

For last few years I have been talking to various startups and have heard many interesting recipes for innovation. Here are six ways to improve your own creative thinking and innovation skills…

1. Create your own “Three Ifs”
Many good innovators take an existing object and ask clever questions to twist the very concept of it and make it new. Steve Jobs didn’t start with the idea of a smartphone. He just took an existing cell phone and asked a very simple question: how can we improve it to make it better – or the best?

Let’s be clear about this – there are no universal recipes for innovation, and each person should develop her or his own approach depending on specialty, interest, type of thinking, or even the type of team s/he is participating in.

That said, I usually suggest my students build creative thinking around three “ifs”:

(1) What would happen if I change it (the object/ system/ social relationship, etc)? 
(2) What would I change or improve about this object if I wanted to use it in 10 years?
(3) What would I do if I had a one-million-dollar investment to improve it?

These questions can become powerful tools that can help you to think differently. It is important to exercise these skills by repeatedly using the “three ifs” formula (or designing your own set of questions) about all sorts of things. And many new ideas will pop up.

For example, for several semesters I kept asking my students, let us take a bicycle, think about it and ask the “three if” questions, so we can come up with a new idea. Initially the students strongly resisted and were very skeptical. However, after several rounds of discussions and brainstorming they began to come up with many new creative ideas. We narrowed down those innovations into small course projects and my students’ teams won several cash awards to implement their creative ideas.

2. Practice dreaming
The greatest paradox is that creative thinking is not necessarily the product of IQ or enlightenment via the proverbial apple falling on your head. It is a matter of regularly training your imagination, practicing your powers of observation and dreaming, big or small. It sounds so simple, and yet in this era of information overload and highly charged urban life, this important element is often missing from our everyday lives.

All too often we stay focused on the main task at hand, devoting our mental powers to routine actions (including Twitter and SMS – well, I am sometimes guilty of this too), so that at the end of the day the most creative idea we can come up with is just to finally take a break in front of the TV or computer screen. Sound familiar? 

Whatever you’re doing – whether it’s work or leisure – practice spending time applying the “three ifs” formula to anything you see or imagine. This will help you get into the habit of making space in your mind for dreaming – essential for creative thinking and innovation.

3. Make time for cohesive creative thinking
Every textbook on creativity affirms to the importance of setting aside clearly defined time for creative thinking and innovation. For example, Google asks its teams to allocate at least 20% of their time to creative thinking or new projects.  But often, even if we show up ready to innovate, still something doesn’t work and fresh ideas fail to pop up like popcorn. There are two reasons for this stalemate. The first is that we don’t practice dreaming, and the second is we don’t practice focusing on cohesive ideas.

Therefore, the next rule of creative thinking is very simple: allocate time – it might be an hour per day or per week – in which to exercise creative thinking about something specific. A colleague told me that when he was a student many years ago he started musing about mobile phones – what they would be in 10 and 20 years’ time. Already at college his essays on this topic won much praise, and after college he got a cool job designing apps for phones to make them much smarter and attractive for “millennials”.

4. Learn to pitch your ideas (in an elevator)
There is simple truth in the fact that Steve Jobs of Apple was great at exploring and explaining innovations based on existing products – laptops, cell phones, music players. He didn’t invent those products, but he made them better and he was great at explaining why his version was superior to other competing goods.

On many occasions I hear from my students, “But I had that idea first” or “I proposed something like that just recently and nobody listened to me.” In this situation I always highlight the bottom line – probably you did have a wonderful idea, but you didn’t express yourself clearly and excitingly enough to grab people’s attention, or help others to grasp the nature of your innovation or project.

There is an old saying, “If you cannot express your idea in three sentences – you don’t have an idea!” One of the most important innovation skills is the ability to present a very short and clear description of a new idea (two to three sentences – like shouting through the closing door of an elevator) and to make a short presentation (two to three minutes – what is called an “elevator pitch”). Like any other skill, the ability to articulate in this way can only come through much practice.

5. Bounce ideas off others
Even a great innovator needs people around her or him to discuss – or “bounce” – new creative ideas and innovations. What do the major innovative ideas of our time have in common, from Microsoft (well, when it was young) to Google? All of them were created by teams of people who stayed together to conceive the idea, plan their innovative projects, take them to investors and the public, and most importantly jointly brainstorm those innovations within the team – bouncing ideas, questions and improvements until the product was perfected to become the next multi-billion dollar “eureka.”

Therefore, a final important asset to add to your innovation skillset, is the ability to be a valuable team player, capable of bouncing ideas to the next level. For some young people this is very natural, while for others it does not come so easily to be a team player. But it is never too late to train yourself in this mode of interacting.

Source: https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/5-ways-improve-your-creative-thinking

8 Ways to Boost Your Creativity

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/rhubarb/boost-your-creativity.html
Creativity isn’t a lightning bolt that strikes occasionally and can’t be predicted: it’s more like a muscle. Creativity needs to be trained, challenged, and worked on constantly to develop your skills.

Perhaps you have a job that requires a high degree of creative thinking - or perhaps you’d simply like to hone your creative skills for future job opportunities and business ventures.

Regardless, even if you feel like you don’t have a creative bone in your body right now, you absolutely can train yourself to boost your creativity. Below are a few fantastic tips for working that creativity muscle consistently!

What are the Benefits of Creative Thinking?
Creativity is an extremely useful skill, regardless of your aspirations in life. Creative thinking can come in handy when you’re playing word games with friends at home, taking up a new hobby such as playing an instrument, and especially if you are interested in a career in which creative thinking is a necessary skill.

1. Keep learning
A creative mind is a curious mind, so make an effort to keep learning new skills and indulging your natural curiosity to find out more about the world and everything in it.

Once you’ve developed some creative skills, it’s important to keep on challenging yourself and acquiring new knowledge to inspire you and help you grow. Whether you simply make an effort to read more in your spare time, or look into taking more actual courses, constant learning is vital to boost your creativity.

2. Do what you love
When you actually love your job, you are naturally going to be more inspired and enthusiastic about creative problem solving and coming up with new ideas. A task that you keep putting off is going to be very difficult to approach with a positive, creative attitude.

Find a hobby that lets you be creative that you love to do, such as playing an instrument, painting, or even a sport that completely places you in the present.

3. Take a break
Although creativity is absolutely a skill you can train yourself to be better at (rather than the notion of simply waiting for creativity to ‘strike’), it’s important to also not put too much pressure on yourself. If you’ve been sitting at your desk for hours desperately seeking new ideas and solutions and coming up with nothing, take a break.

Get a change of scenery, clear your head, and take your mind off the task at hand: when you come back to it with a fresh set of eyes, you might suddenly find the idea you’ve been waiting for sitting in front of you the entire time!

4. Get some exercise
Exercise can be a great way to clear your mind if you’ve been feeling under pressure or stressed out.

Numerous studies have shown that physical exercise (even just 30 minutes of aerobic activity) genuinely does help us become more creative as well as improve brain function! So next time you’re in a bit of a creative rut, put on your running shoes and get your heart rate pumping and see if you can encourage your creative juices to flow more freely!

5. Find the conditions that make you most creative
Some people are early birds and find they’re at their most creative and productive in the early hours of the morning before most people even begin to stir! Others (the majority, in fact) thrive on the quiet of night - while some might find the typical 9 - 5 is perfectly suited to creative thinking.

The key is to find what working conditions work best for you - not only the hours that you work, but other things such as location, lighting, music (or silence!), the tools/equipment you use. Start thinking of yourself as an artist - you need everything to be perfect to perform your best!

6. Make time for creativity
Many people make the mistake of simply waiting for inspiration to strike, and therefore don’t see creativity as a skill that can be honed and developed when you need it. Try to re-frame the way you see your creative skills and actually make time for creative thinking.

If you have a job that requires large amounts of creativity, schedule out time for this in your diary - while it may feel strange to factor in ‘creative time’ at first, it takes the pressure off having a sudden burst of inspiration when you least expect it - which definitely isn’t a sustainable way to work!

7. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback
Asking colleagues and peers that you trust and respect for their honest feedback on your work is a fantastic way of honing your skills and making sure that you really are on track with your work.

Find some peers in a similar niche to you who will be able to offer genuine, helpful criticism and feedback on your work - you may find that a few simple but helpful suggestions really boosts your creativity on your next project.

8. Collaborate with others
As well as asking for feedback, collaborating with your colleagues and within your network can be a great source of inspiration. If you’ve been struggling to find creative solutions and ideas for a certain project, bringing in a trusted peer can be a fantastic way of boosting your creativity.

Sometimes, having someone else to bounce off and spark ideas can be extremely helpful - especially if you’ve been struggling with something in particular on your own for a while!

As you can see from the list above, there are many different ways to boost your creativity. Most importantly, you need to remember that different methods are going to work for different people - your creative side may come out at different times, in different moods, even in different locations, to others - and being in tune with that is what’s essential.

If you’ve been struggling to boost your creativity recently, try one or two of the ideas listed above - see what happens. Remember, creativity is like a muscle that needs to be trained with consistency and intensity, you just need to find what really helps you get those creative juices flowing!

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/rhubarb/boost-your-creativity.html