Earlier this morning (from ~2:00am – 5:24am to be precise), my new neighbour of 3 days graciously assisted me with my ongoing insomnia by having a house party where she managed to cram something akin to a small village into her itty bitty student studio.
As I laid in bed feeling all cranky, I lamented that I couldn’t even write a blog post about it.
Then I realized – well, self. If you can’t think of a blog post, it’s because you’re just not being creative enough.
And there it was.
Lots of times you need to challenge yourself to be creative in order to solve problems.
A lot of what I wrote on Friday about making things happen applies, but here are other ideas around how to be creative:
- Early hours are your most creative time. (Like when you are at your groggiest.) Or not. Other studies think it’s 10pm. Probably depends on if you are an early morning person or a night owl. If you’re not feeling inspired about something, it’s worth trying it at a time when you wouldn’t normally work on it.
- Try random associations between objects and words. Quick, what’s the relationship between crazy glue and a goatee? Bacon and jellyfish? A hipster and a nun? You’ll be a surprised how easy those connections come with practice, which makes bridging other connections more likely too.
- Do something different. Take a new route to work. Pick up a new hobby. Or do something really out there like sell all your possessions and move to Papua New Guinea. Hello leeches! Heeellllloooo new perspective!
- Do something really embarrassing or stupid. Like stand in a busy intersection and yell out the time to all the passerbys. In French. Ok, so I haven’t tried this one yet — but mark my words, I shall! Once you challenge your inhibitions on what’s absurd and what’s not, other “previously impossible” problems may get solved.
- Semi-occupy yourself – for example through vigorous exercise. By distracting your linearly bent left brain with physical movement, you free your right brain to develop creative solutions. Plus regular exercise has been proven to create new neurons. Now who has the biggest brain? :p Don’t go overboard though. You don’t want to be too exhausted from exercise to think.
- Sleep on it. Beyond restorative powers, the time during REM sleep is when your brain best establishes associative pathways between different concepts and thoughts. Afternoon naps are great for that too. I’m a fan.
And on that note, dear neighbour – if you’re reading my blog, I’d like to focus on the last option tonight, thank you kindly. 🙂
