No matter what your daily job responsibilities are, chances are, every once in a while you’re going to need a little jumpstart in your creativity. If you are a business owner, or a part of a small team, you may be wearing multiple hats and therefore struggle with maintaining your creativity and maximizing it for all of the different roles and responsibilities. Creativity is essential to solving all kinds of problems in life and business.
So what can you do when you’re feeling really dry, and your blog posts, email blasts, social media posts, or even your approach to your day, is looking a little blah? Here are 5 tips for maintaining your creativity at work.
1. Read
Reading articles, books, and other informative publications, especially those related to your industry is a great way to drum up some inspiration for your own business. No, I’m not saying copy what someone else is doing. But I am saying that witnessing someone else’s creativity can help to spark yours.
2. Carve Out Play Time
Yes, you read that correctly! Grown ups need play time too. And no I don’t mean like a night out on the town and drinks with your homegirls. I mean like actual play time… Are you getting out in nature? Are you pretending, playing, running, laughing jumping? Using your imagination is ways other than for work is essential if you want your brain to keep giving to you. It’s like going to the gym and working on your upper body forever, developing a really built torso, but neglecting your legs, and walking around looking unbalanced.
3. Collaborate
Two heads are always better than one, but remember, that the more opinions you invite into your business and your decisions, the more likely you are to walk away still feeling uncreative, but also lacking clarity about what is you want to do. Inviting your trusted friends, accountability partner, parents, and more can help you to maximize everyone’s creativity and get back on track.
4. Visit the Creatives
Expose yourself to various forms of art will help you to tap into your own creativity. So visit museums, go to shows, performances and more. This should be a daily practice for you to continue to keep your creative juices flowing. Expose yourself to more music, books, art, and nature… because nature is the greatest work of art we have access to for free!!!
5. Do Something New
A lot of people underestimate the value of learning a new skill. Do you know how to play chess? Ride a bike? Play an instrument. Become a beginner again and practice the art of learning something new. This will inspire new ways for you to attack the current, work related problems you’re trying to solve and help you become even more creative and innovative by putting to use all the new skills you’re learning.
If you’re feeling like you’re stuck and you’re lacking creativity right now when it comes to your business or career, try one of these tips to get your creative juices flowing. And don’t be too hard on yourself, remember that everyone goes through these ebbs and flows of creativity. The most important thing is that you take action now to get unstuck.