Here are twelve daily activities that I’m using to increase my creativity and innovation. If you find me a creative guy, you might want to explore them.
Develop your ability to hear what was not said. It is easy to hear what people said and what you want to hear. It’s harder to hear what people didn’t say! Always try to find out what you or others expect to hear but you didn’t. Everything that wasn’t said has the potential to be a raw material for innovation.
Always try to find out what you don’t know that you don’t know. Share your findings with others. Most of the common outcomes are potential for a new idea to work on. Most of the people are not dealing with what they don’t know; they don’t even think about what they don’t know that they don’t know. Here’s a competitive advantage.
No one wants to hear just complaints, but you are going to pay attention to any complaint. Grumbles contain seeds of problems. These seeds are great potential for new solutions. Listen to complaints correctly and you’ll have a steady stream of ideas.
Learn to be just an observer. Watch what happens around you without any judgment of what you see. You are going to be amazed at what ideas you’ll pick out from observing. Remember not to judge. No innovation will come with judgment. Judgment is a reinforcing mechanism, not one that will produce any creativity.
You can find innovation easily in areas where no one wants to explore. It will be stinky, dark, hot, and muggy. But I guaranty you that you’ll come with a unique solution for common problems. By goggles, diving suite and start diving into the sewage of problems.
Nature has all the answers to your questions. That principle is applied to creativity and innovation. Go out to explore nature, enjoy it, and observe how it’s working. Try to think about how what you saw working in nature can be applied to problems that you are trying to resolve. Tell us what you found. It’s going to be exciting!
People know how atoms are forming into water, what are the particles of atoms and how they behave. But, We don’t have a clue how more complex systems such as clouds form and will evolve. Complexity has more potential for creativity. Understanding complexity creates innovation. I didn’t say that those are easy ways to be more creative.
All models are wrong; some of them are useful. Creating a model enforce you to create an order in chaos. It makes you thinking. New ideas are always coming when you are thinking. Some of them might be a good innovation. Develop an obsession to model everything that you see. Keep on developing those models. It will pay out not just from a creative point of view.
Chaos and random create different results all the time (luckily we can enjoy from different sunsets every day in our life). Adopt randomness to your thought process, and you’ll find yourself coming with new creative ideas. How? Force yourself to switch between thoughts.
Read or listen to new books daily. New data need to be process and store in our brain — this process required to connect new data with the existing one. Storing data will create new interlinks in the brain. These new interlinks are creativity.
Meeting the same people, working on the same problems and being in the same places are all excellent recipe for less stress and creativity in your life. Breaking routines and forcing yourself to break the convenient habits, will increase your creativity. Start small and grow it all the time.
I kept meditation to be last, although I truly believe that meditation is the best way to increase one creativity. When you reach the state that you’re mind is clear from any thoughts, it tends to reward you with new insights and ideas.