Brain warm-up

How often do you want to channel creativity into your daily life?

To ensure you do it, decide upfront how and when.

We skip our creative time because we realize we have to do a lot of things before that dopamine hits the neurons. We must first make the intention of being more creative, then decide when we want to exercise our creative brain, and then finally we have to choose between the many tools to experiment how to bring out the best ideas forward. All of that before getting to the results we need, which are the ideas themselves. That’s too much decision-fatigue for a 10am ideation session.

But if you decide up front, your day could start with a warm up exercise. Make an effort to run it daily, in the same spot if possible, at the same time.

Gather the courage to do it by yourself, in front of others or not, accompanied by others or not. Be OK with some people joining, and be OK with nobody joining. It’s the practice that you’re focusing on, not the result. If you can collaborate with others to co-lead with you, even better. Enjoy the ride.  

Do the same exercise so you don’t have to decide each time before your brain is fired up.

Set an idea quota of 30 ideas a day and don’t stop until you get them. Fil in 30 empty circles with different shapes, work through a puzzle on the table, complete a word game, or use an idea mash-up tool to bring in new concepts from unrelated fields and sources. Watch a 10-minute video or listen to a podcast of something as far away from your domain as possible, then force connect ideas to that domain.

Now that your creative juices are up, you’re ready to generate those incredible ideas for your problems. Remember, play is an integral part of solving decisions. Make it deliberate.