How to be creative when you don’t have time.
Develop your innovative mind from things you already do.
I speak to so many people across professions. Software engineers, accountants, lawyers, engineers, designers, strategists, executives at large. My job requires me to infuse creativity across pretty much everything I do. But that’s not the case for most of us. Most people will have some memories of taking on ‘creative’ activities when they were at school — even being very talented at them. Maybe you were an excellent pianist, guitarist. Maybe you would create your own comic books, or baked a lot. Younger days, when you had more time.
With the mass extinction of the white collar job pretty much imminent, creative thinking will be a top skill to learn for your advantage, particularly in the next ten years as society at large scrambles to find ways to create the next thing that will succeed our current economic systems.
So, we know creativity is a professional advantage. It also enriches your life. And the very good news is that you don’t need to make a dedicated weekly scheduled endeavour to build your creativity. You can infuse it already with highly mundane activities you probably already do.
Much of creativity is exercised in the in-between moments where your mind can wander. Here are some ways you can more intentionally infuse creative practices into your already-busy life.
Cook dinner with a constraint (e.g. using only three ingredients, or only what’s in the fridge).
Move your body, physically. (Gym, sports, pilates, etc.).
Have a cinema night at home, and remain fully present in the experience.
Play music in your car, and hum, sing, tap along to it.
Eat your lunch outside, away from your desk. Give your mind negative space to process and synthesise.
Ask yourself a pressing question before bed and see what emerges by morning. Let your subconscious do some work.
On your walk or run, imagine the stories of the people who live nearby.
Talk to a stranger. Ask them a peculiar, revealing question.
Curate your social feeds to follow inspiring accounts.
Draft an email with a creative constraint, such as a two-word subject line, or one-sentence body. (We all love a one-sentence email.)
Imagine the place you’re in 100 years from now.
Explain something you’re working on using a metaphor or analogy.
Generate five ideas in 60 seconds for a problem or opportunity. (A mini version of the Hundred Idea Sketch.)
Keep a quick journal of one interesting idea per day. Does not have to be a good idea.
Practice your pattern recognition. Next time you travel for work, consider what you’re seeing in that region that’s the same or different to your home.
Read before bed.
Play Nintendo games to wind down.
Speak your thoughts aloud to yourself.
Notice what people complain about. Friction points are often the seeds for innovation.
Rename something mundane — a task, process, meeting — to reveal its essence.
Many people say they don’t have time for creativity.
The real issue is attention, not time.
Build your curiosity. Enable blank mind space. See what you can play with in your day-to-day.