Do you ever secretly wish you were just a little more creative? Maybe inventing a life changing gadget is your unrealized childhood dream or perhaps you just want to hand in a more original essay for once. Whatever the case, the good news is that even if you don’t feel naturally creative; there are plenty of ways to get into the right frame of mind.
Taking a walk in the park or on a treadmill, for instance, could increase your creative output by 60%, and a quick nap can also be helpful, with one study showing that power naps boost activity in the right side of the brain, which is most associated with creativity.
But since these are fairly ordinary things that most of us do (or should be doing) on a regular basis, here are five slightly more unusual and generally frowned-upon things that actually have the potential to help you get into the creative zone.
Entitled people want what they want, when they want it, and they don’t care if they have to break a few rules to get it. Simply put, they’re not much fun to be around. But new research by psychological scientists from Cornell and Vanderbilt University shows that in small doses, a sense of entitlement can stimulate a person’s creative problem solving skills.
For the study, participants were made to feel either more or less entitled by writing out three reasons why they deserved more than others and should demand the best in life, or three reasons why they didn’t deserve more than others.
After this, they were asked to complete creative tasks like coming up with new uses for a paper clip and drawing an imaginary alien creature. Sure enough, the participants who felt more entitled at the time produced more interesting and novel ideas.
The takeaway is that when people feel entitled, they think and act differently than others, which means they are better able to think outside the box. Even if you don’t want to become an entitled jerk for the sake of creativity, it’s an easy enough experiment to recreate when it’s time to think innovatively.
Albert Einstein once posed the question that if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign?
It certainly seems he was onto something, as research led by psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs from the University of Minnesota shows that while tidy environments have the benefit of promoting good behavior like healthy eating and generosity, messy ones encourage new ideas and creativity.
In one experiment, participants were placed in either a tidy or messy environment and asked to come up with new uses for ping pong balls. Although they all came up with the same number of ideas, impartial judges rated the ones generated by participants in the messy room as more interesting and creative. So the next time you need to think creatively, do yourself a favor and don’t tidy up.
No one likes to be bored, and most of us will do anything to avoid it. But by filling our every waking moment with activities designed to stave off boredom, we might actually be missing out on some of our most innovative ideas.
In one study led by Dr Sandi Mann, a professor of psychology at the University of Lancashire, participants were asked to display their creativity by coming up with new uses for polystyrene cups, but first, some of them were asked to complete the unquestionably boring task of copying down numbers from a telephone directory.
As you may have guessed, the ones who were already bored when they started the creative task came up with more original ideas. In another experiment the researchers asked an additional group of people to merely read the numbers, and this group turned out to be even more creative than the ones who had been asked to write the numbers out.
So what’s the takeaway? Don’t be afraid of boredom, but to get the most out of it, choose a more passive boring activity that doesn’t require too much mental energy and still allows for some daydreaming in-between.
Although being creative is probably the last thing on your mind after a long day, research shows that we’re most creative when we’re tired, whether it’s down to morning grogginess or evening fatigue.
In one study, Mareike Wieth, an associate professor of psychology at Albion University, had two groups of students, night owls and early birds, come in for a series of tests either at 8:30am, when night owls would still be feeling groggy, or at 4pm, when morning people would be starting to feel a dip in their energy levels.
When it came to analytical problems, the time of day had no noticeable impact, but for the problems that required some creativity to solve, the participants all did better at the time of day during which they were fatigued.
Why? Apparently, when you’re tired, your brain doesn’t filter out distractions as efficiently and connections between ideas or concepts are more easily forgotten. Although this may sound like a bad thing, creativity is all about making new connections and being open to new ways of thinking, so fatigue is actually the perfect tool for creative thinking.
When we want to get work done we usually seek out a quiet place without many distractions, but although silence is great for sharpening our focus for detail-oriented tasks, when it comes to creativity, a bit of noise is actually a positive thing.
One study by researchers from the University of Illinois had four groups of people complete a series of tests designed to measure creativity while being exposed to various levels of ambient noise; either 50 decibels, 70 decibels, 85 decibels or total silence. Participants who had completed the tests with a moderate level of background noise (70 decibels) did far better than those in any of the other groups.
So, just like fatigue, the right amount of noise creates some distraction, which helps you to move past your normal thought patterns and make new connections. So while you don’t want to be blaring music during a brainstorming session, a moderate level of background noise, like the hum of a busy coffee shop, could be just what you need.
Marianne Stenger is a writer with Open Colleges. She covers career development, workplace productivity and self-improvement. You can connect with her on Twitter and Google+, or find her latest articles here.
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Celtic Astrology was created by the Druids sometime around 1000BC. The Druid religion was based on 3 basic strands of belief: the first was to remember their ancestors and the past; the second was to have an understanding of nature so that they could work with it, not against it; and the third was to explore the connection of everyday reality with that of the spiritual realm.
In Celtic astrology, the zodiac is based on the trees that the Druids held sacred. It was believed that the trees themselves expressed personal characteristics that could then be associated with particular months of the year. This was done by connecting the tree to a lunar month through the use of the consonants in the Celtic alphabet. 13 of the consonants form the calendar of seasonal magic, and the 5 vowels represent complementary seasonal stations.
Unlike the Greco-Roman zodiac, the Celtic calendar has 13 astrological signs based on lunar months. Each month contains 28 days, except the last one which only has 24. However, the Celtic zodiac isn’t confined solely to the lunar cycle. The Druids split their years into 2 halves: the dark half and the light half to represent the recurring cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. As a result the Druids developed a zodiac rooted in both the lunar and solar cycles of life.
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Choose Your Birth Date
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Decisions are not a democratic thing.
Trash the complicated charts with spider web diagrams.
You’ll just fry your brain.
The small stuff is easy, but those Goliath-sized choices…
They can bring a torrent of sweat and Richter-size nervousness.
As the complexity oozes in.
The biggest mistake you can make as a business owner
As a business owner, I would often put the “pro” in procrastination.
Not wise. Because he who hesitates is lost in this nanosecond age of global competition.
Napoleon Hill nailed it: “Indecision is the seedling of fear.”
While I was turning blue, life decided for me.
Because, as Will Rogers wryly noted, “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.”
After all, time ticks on. Sooner or later, I got an avalanche of “mañana”— and frenzied cope. I had to drop everything and douse this fire immediately! They don’t make aspirin big enough to zap that headache.
Is there a way to smother those flames of maybe?
How do you cut down on all that sweating and shaking?
Be like a Boy Scout
Be prepared!
Sure, emergencies will flare up out of nowhere: a water pipe explodes on the jobsite. A major client suddenly cancels their order.
And these urgencies, like a midnight tornado, add turbulence as they pull your decision making into the immediacy of the moment and away from expansion—where it needs to be. You’re reactive instead of proactive.
Avoid that by following your scout manual — aka the company policy you wrote ahead of time to contain the surprises of life.
So when they erupt, you can either scramble for a time-and-a-half plumber or calmly move into action.
And all the while, focus your decision-making on the big picture.
Don’t count the carnage
Injuries will heal, crashes can be reversed. Regret is leprosy to business survival; its scars spread to all involved.
And it’s infinitely more painful than simply doing something — anything.
The problem is not the wreckage we cause, but rather our failure to take responsibility for that strewn debris.
So, instead of fretting over the rubble, take a tip from Robert Kiyosaki: “Don’t waste a good mistake…learn from it.”
That holds true for you and your staff. Those who will decide ultimately get more respect than the wafflers. And as long as you hit more home runs than flies, you’re fine. But any decision beats no decision.
Keep the epidemic at bay
If you don’t delegate any company decisions, your business will soon be infected with the one-man-stand disease.
The symptoms are easy to spot: a snail’s pace of activity and a frantic, frustrated staff. Micromanagement is the father of uncertainty and fear.
And if left unchecked, the disease spreads procrastination and confusion as decisions wind up in the pending basket. Choices are never made in turmoil.
As this virus spreads, it cripples your workforce as your business contracts, just like that noose you tighten around the competency and stability of your staff. Thus sprouts the seeds of insurrection.
What’s the vaccine? Trust in the team.
You hired them. You trained them. Now let them make their own decisions. Any uncertainties they have are cured by simply having them follow your written policy.
Shed that flab
Like it or not, indecisions pile up like a ton of love handles. Time to go on a diet.
Otherwise, they will hang around like that third helping of pumpkin pie.
Ugh!
So make a list of those indecisions; complete what you can. Every decision that you finally make will feel like you’ve shed a pound.
You’re looking better already.
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Paul Economen fuses his journalism and sales experience to create a professional customer case study that separates your business from the crowd and makes your credibility glow. There’s more information here: http://www.TheWriterNamedPaul.com
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Sig Nordal 