5 Ways to Maximize Your Creativity at Work
“Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought” – Albert Einstein
Here are 5 ways that can help you think differently:
1) Ambience – Your workspace must be infused with excellence. OfficingNow – a marketplace of business centers and coworking spaces, offers best-in-class facilities at affordable prices – has talents from different spheres sharing their workspaces. Imagine the amount of inspiration in the air when you have a spectrum of professionals – fresh startups to business travelers from large MNCs, freelancers and home workers to successful entrepreneurs – sharing your floor.
2) Brainstorm – The key to ideate is to understand the problem. Only then can you come up with an apt and saleable solution.
Einstein said, “If I had to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem, and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” So, instead of jumpstarting with the end goal in mind, start by analyzing the problem from different angles – brainstorm – also known as re-conceptualizing. Researchers have noted this to be a very common characteristic of successful creative people.
Another way to enhance creativity is by counterfactual thinking, i.e., thinking of possible alternate solutions/results of a past event. Ask “What if?” and “If I had only” to get counter thoughts. Example: “What if I didn’t slam the brakes in time?”, “If I had only tried the shirt before buying.”
3) Creativity spurs at night – Some of us are more creative at nights. Studies show that as you get tired/drained/exhausted by day-end, but you still have to finish, say, a presentation, your mind switches to its creative high.
Neuroscience explains this as the frontal cortex (responsible for the interpretation of data, information and things happening around us) not getting enough dopamine when the body is exhausted, to focus and work actively. That’s when the other parts of the brain with still some energy left, and which are usually not allowed to “say anything when frontal cortex is in charge”, are now free to run. They spur creativity by generating-accepting-encouraging wild thoughts.
So don’t let the general norm of “night-time-bed-time” dampen your creativity. To effectively maximize your creativity, pick workspaces that are open 24×7 in top cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Pune and Mumbai on OfficingNow.
4) Draw boundaries – Restrict your visits to internet, TV, movies, parks, and any other muse for ideation. Spending too much time on these in the name of inspiration can prove to be detrimental. Use it as long as they expand your imagination, not replace it. Famous writers cut themselves completely off social media for months while working on new projects, and resurface only during promotions. You could read or listen to audio books that can trigger your imagination, unlike these visual aides that do all the imagining for you, thereby limiting your creativity.
Psychological research also says that daydreaming boosts creativity. Get your “incubation of ideas” ready – from brainstorming results – to deliberate on pointers before drifting off.
5) Energize– Eat well, exercise and meditate. Living healthy rids you of frustrations, refreshes the mind and opens new creative arenas.
So, if you are traveling and/or looking for a coworking workspace that will facilitate the above creativity maximizers, then co-working aggregators like OfficingNow offer you a one-stop solution for your needs.
