Time is the enemy for creative thinking. Hack this in the festive season

Time is the enemy for creative thinking. Hack this in the festive season

I never have enough time to do the normal things in my job let alone time to think creatively or innovatively. Does this sound familiar to you?

We all the research and stats show us that time is the No.1 enemy of creativity and innovation.

To get around this we need to implement some changes in how we operate to create small pockets of time that we can use for different thinking styles.

I’m all about creating new behaviours (small at first) to ultimately become new habits. Writing blog posts is one of these that I am working on at the moment.

I’m a big fan of James Clear and his book Atomic Habits for creating new habits and then habit stacking to get a different outcome.

The key to thinking creatively is to block out time in our days and then set ourselves a challenge to come up with new or improved ideas. Usually our minds wander back to the day to operations and tasks we are all employee to do.

As we move into the festive season, maybe set yourself a challenge that before you attend any function you are going to set aside 5-10 mins to think about a business problem in a new or innovative way. Once you have completed your thinking, then and only then go off to your event. You never know what you might come up with.

Make sure you think about as specific problem or challenge to ensure your focus rather than just lots of random thoughts.

You never know you might end up solving some of your biggest challenges and learn some new creative thinking habits as we head into 2020.