How to Unleash Your Creativity

Have you ever noticed that your best ideas come to you while standing in the shower or at three in the morning? Weird, right? Something about it seems to help unleash your creativity. In fact, I have never, ever, come up with a truly great idea while sitting at my desk or in a meeting room.

All my good ideas, and I mean earth moving creative stuff, have come to me while I was: cutting the grass, gardening, out for a walk, soaking in the bathtub, washing my car… Note that this list of “creative locations” has nothing to do with an office environment! They simply don’t let you unleash your creativity.

Why is that? Well, our brains, our conscious brains anyways, are wired to compute data. Our unconscious minds are powerful ‘solution-machines.’ The problem is that the solution-machine has no capability for language and has trouble talking to our conscious brains that are busy computing data that we have in front of us. We need to have the silence or ‘nothingness’ of doing something brainless or being completely relaxed in order for the solution-machine to get the message through to our conscious brains.

How to Unleash Your Creativity

How do we enhance this amazing capability to be creative? (Yes, even accountants and engineers have this ability!) Here’s my short and simple list for getting creative and turning ideas into reality:

1. Schedule ‘Cloud Time.’ Once a week I schedule two hours in a particular day to disconnect from meetings, email, text-messages and the phone to be alone to think. It is the most powerful two hours of the week.
2. Record. I keep a whiteboard pen in my shower to write thoughts and ideas on the glass shower door that come to me while I am scrubbing. Experience has taught me that the idea is usually gone when I step out to dry off. I keep a notebook and pen beside the bed, so I can capture ideas in the middle of the night.  I carry my iPhone on walks and while cutting the grass, so I don’t lose the thought by the time I back at my desk.
3. Expand. Once I have grabbed the idea from creative thinking, I always grab someone I trust to ‘jam’ with. Just like musicians will take a few notes and work with each other to create an entire score, I grab someone and a big whiteboard to expand the idea into something that we can operationalize. These are magical sessions. In fact, the three prestigious marketing innovation awards I was blessed to be part of came from an idea that was expanded by group think.

Don’t have grass to cut? Get out there and cut the neighbor’s grass!

Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, and International Keynote Speaker. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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