In business, it’s important to constantly be on your toes. Flexibility and adaptability are crucial as you iterate new strategies or refocus old efforts. No matter what market you’re in, you can bet it’s always changing, and so should your business. Don’t let yourself get into a slump; there are many ways to go about increasing creativity and productivity! Set a goal to continue pushing the envelope.
StorageMart President Cris Burnam recently wrote an article on this subject over on Small Business CEO’s website. In it, he details seven valuable strategies for innovating and remaining at the forefront of new ideas to grow your company. One of the biggest points that Cris emphasizes is the importance of clear communication, both within your business and without. Keeping your ear to the ground in communicating with employees and also your peers or competitors in rival companies can help you gain valuable insight towards increasing creativity and thinking outside the box in your long-term business plans.
Some simple methods for increasing creativity in the workplace are:
1. Listen to music.
Many people are fond of listening to music while they work. Besides its natural tendency to be relaxing, it can actually have positive effects towards increasing creativity by helping you get “in the zone” and zeroed in on the task at hand.
2. Read similar articles or blog posts.
If your creative venture involves building thought leadership or generating content, it can often be beneficial to see what else is being said around the blogosphere! Often, the most difficult part of any creative task is the initial planning stages, so if you can find inspiration or at least some starting points from other sources, you can more easily get the ball rolling.
3. Just get started.
As I mentioned above, the beginning is often the most difficult stage of any creative task, but it’s too poor an excuse to allow that initial hurdle to stump you forever. At a certain point of being stuck, you’ll have to come to grips with the fact that you may not know how to approach this challenge, and just force yourself to get started in a less than satisfactory way. Once you do get your project off the ground, you can typically return to the subpar work you may have started with and refine it.
4. Take a break!
Believe it or not, sometimes taking a break is actually the most productive thing you can do! Studies have found that allowing yourself a break from a particularly challenging task can help you decompress and reset. This helps with increasing creativity when you do return to finish it, since you can try to approach it from a potentially different angle instead of beating your head against the wall.
What do you find helpful when you’re in a creative slump? Let us know in the comments below!