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 * 04-02-14
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10 SURPRISING WAYS TO TRANSFORM YOUR CREATIVE THINKING


SOME OF THESE WILL SURPRISE YOU, FROM BEING TIRED FOR OPTIMAL CREATIVITY TO
KEEPING A STEADY NOISE-LEVEL FOR YOUR CREATIVE BEST.

[Image: Flickr user Drewski Mac]
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

More Like This
Admitting what you don’t know is key to effective leadership
3 reasons introverts can be good leaders
How psychology can help you change someone’s mind
By Belle Beth Cooper7 minute Read

We’ve written about creativity a few times on the Buffer blog, but it’s hard to
keep track of everything we learn about it. One day I’m adjusting the
temperature in my workspace, and the next I’m trying to put off creative work
until I’m tired.




If you’re in the same boat, and you find it’s difficult to remember what will
improve your creativity and when you should do your most creative work,
hopefully this list will help you get it all straight.

1. YOUR BRAIN DOES BETTER CREATIVE WORK WHEN YOU’RE TIRED

Unlike solving an analytic problem, creative insights come from letting our
minds wander along tangents and into seemingly unrelated areas. Though many of
us identify as morning larks or night owls, peaking in our problem-solving
skills and focus at particular times of the day, creative thinking actually
works better at non-optimal times. So, if you’re a morning lark, your brain will
be better at finding creative insights at night, when you’re tired.

The reason behind this is that a tired brain struggles to filter out
distractions and focus on one thing. It’s also more likely to wander off on
tangents. While that seems like a bad thing when you’re working, creative
thinking actually benefits from distractions and random thoughts. Research has
shown that we’re better at “thinking outside the box” at our non-optimal times.

advertisement



2. EXERCISE CAN IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY

We know exercise is good for us for lots of reasons, but here’s one more.
Studies have shown that exercise can improve our ability to think creatively.
When researchers had half the participants in a study perform an exercise video
while the other half simply watched a video, those who had exercised
outperformed the others in terms of divergent thinking–or, coming up with more
possible solutions to a problem.


I love the way it’s explained in this Psychology Today article:

> “Sweat is like WD-40 for your mind–it lubricates the rusty hinges of your
> brain and makes your thinking more fluid. Exercise allows your conscious mind
> to access fresh ideas that are buried in the subconscious.”

3. AMBIENT NOISE LEVELS ARE BEST FOR CREATIVITY

I actually thought silence might turn out to be the best sound for creative
thinking, but it turns out that ambient noise levels are just right. Unlike loud
music or silence, ambient noise levels have proven to be perfect for improving
creative thinking.



Silence, in fact, actually helps us to sharpen our focus, so it’s useful for
intense problem-solving or detail-oriented tasks. Creative thinking, on the
other hand, requires the kind of ambient buzz of sound that you might find in a
café to promote broader thinking and new ideas.

So much so that tools like Coffitivity exist to bring that ambient café sound to
your desk:


4. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL: CREATIVITY IS ALL ABOUT MAKING CONNECTIONS


I always thought creativity was about coming up with original ideas, but it
turns out creativity is really just about making new connections between
existing ideas. This is pretty exciting, because it means creativity suddenly
seems less scary: we can all connect things that already exist, right?



Even Steve Jobs agrees with this theory of what creativity is all about:

> “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they
> did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it,
> they just saw something.”

Another quote I love about this is by the artist, Austin Kleon:

> “Every artist gets asked the question, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’
> 
> The honest artist answers, ‘I steal them.’”

Research has even found that intelligence is something that comes from physical
connections in the brain:



> “Several brain regions, and the connections between them, were what was most
> important to general intelligence.”

“The brain regions important for general intelligence are found in several
specific places (orange regions shown on the brain on the left). Looking inside
the brain reveals the connections between these regions, which are particularly
important to general intelligence. In the image on the right, the brain has been
made partly transparent. The big orange regions in the right image are
connections (like cables) that connect the specific brain regions in the image
on the left.”

5. TRAVELING ABROAD MIGHT IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVE THINKING

The research on this one is still small, but one study showed that for college
students, those who travelled abroad scored higher on creative thinking tests
than those who stayed at their main campus. This particular study followed
students who travelled from their college in the US to take part in a summer
study program in England.

In many countries, cultural norms differ greatly between different states or
areas, so it follows that we might see an increase in creativity from even
interstate travel.



6. DIM LIGHTING MAKES US FEEL MORE FREE

I like a lot of natural light in my workspace, and I get quite frustrated in
dark rooms when I need to focus. However, I was surprised to find this research
that proved dim lighting can improve creative performance.

The researchers completed six different studies, which all showed that dim
lighting increased creativity. They found that even without noticing a
difference in visibility, if the lighting around them was dim, participants were
likely to be more creative. The reasoning came from the subconscious feeling of
being more free to explore:

> “…darkness elicits a feeling of being free from constraints and triggers a
> risky, explorative processing style.”

For times when you don’t have control over the lighting around you, you can just
think about being in the dark and it could have an effect:



> “Other experiments found that merely priming the idea of darkness–such as by
> taking five minutes to describe an experience of literally being in the dark,
> and recalling how it felt–was sufficient to boost creativity.”

7. BLUE AND GREEN CAN IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE ON CREATIVE TASKS


Color me surprised. Apparently a brief glimpse of green can improve your
creative performance! Another study actually shows that seeing red or blue can
have different effects on our cognitive performance: red helps us with
detail-oriented tasks where we need to focus, whereas blue enhances creative
performance.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll want to paint your office blue or green,
but it’s a helpful tip to keep in mind when you’re working on a creative project
or switching between different types of work.

8. CONSTRAINTS CAN BE BENEFICIAL TO CREATIVE WORK


Another idea I had about creative thinking which was proved wrong is that
freedom leads to more creative ideas. Counterintuitively, it turns out that
constraints can actually increase our creative output. This could be due to
removing the overwhelm of having too many choices. If you’ve ever faced the
hurdle of a blank page, you’ll know what I mean.



Writer and actor John Cleese describes creativity as something that can be so
elusive that one almost has to trap it using constraints.

> “You have to create boundaries of space and then you have to create boundaries
> of time.”

One of my favorite examples of amazing creativity coming out of constraints is
an old story in which an author (often Ernest Hemingway, but the true author is
debateable) bet his friends that he could write a whole story using just six
words. Here’s the result:

> “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”

9. A SEPARATE, MESSY DESK CAN IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY

I’ve never been a fan of having a messy desk, but I’m starting to think I might
need to. This research proved that a messy environment leads to more creative
thinking. It also encouraged participants subconsciously to be more drawn to new
things than anything labelled as “classic.”



The study also found that a more orderly environment led participants to be more
generous and choose healthier snacks than those in the messy environment.
Perhaps the answer is to have two work spaces, for different types of work, as
writer Austin Kleon does:


His digital desk in the background is where his analytical work takes place,
while the foreground is home to his messy, analog desk for creative thinking
tasks.

10. BEING SLEEPY CAN MAKE YOU MORE CREATIVE

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt especially ready to work when I’m
still waking up. This period of coming out of sleep is called the hypnopompic
state. We often end up with strong visual images lingering from our dreams when
we wake out of REM sleep, when most of our dreaming happens. For this reason,
lots of artists have coveted this just-waking-up period to improve their
creative thinking.



Famous surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, was known for using the hypnopompic
state to help him generate creative ideas. He would often nap in a chair,
holding a spoon in his hand. Under the spoon, on the floor, was a tin plate.
When he drifted off to sleep, he’d drop the spoon, and the clattering noise it
made on the plate would wake him up, helping him to latch onto those vivid
images that occur in our dreams.


There’s a lot to remember in here, and no doubt I’ve missed more studies about
how to improve your creative thinking. Changing one thing at a time about your
process or working environment could eventually lead you to incorporating more
of these into your day.

What works best for your creative thinking? Let us know in the comments.



This article originally appeared on Buffer and is reprinted with permission.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Belle Beth Cooper is a co-founder of Exist, a personal analytics platform to
help you track and understand your life. She's also a freelance writer

More

advertisement



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 * 04-02-14
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10 SURPRISING WAYS TO TRANSFORM YOUR CREATIVE THINKING


SOME OF THESE WILL SURPRISE YOU, FROM BEING TIRED FOR OPTIMAL CREATIVITY TO
KEEPING A STEADY NOISE-LEVEL FOR YOUR CREATIVE BEST.

[Image: Flickr user Drewski Mac]
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

By Belle Beth Cooper7 minute Read

We’ve written about creativity a few times on the Buffer blog, but it’s hard to
keep track of everything we learn about it. One day I’m adjusting the
temperature in my workspace, and the next I’m trying to put off creative work
until I’m tired.

advertisement

advertisement



If you’re in the same boat, and you find it’s difficult to remember what will
improve your creativity and when you should do your most creative work,
hopefully this list will help you get it all straight.

1. YOUR BRAIN DOES BETTER CREATIVE WORK WHEN YOU’RE TIRED

Unlike solving an analytic problem, creative insights come from letting our
minds wander along tangents and into seemingly unrelated areas. Though many of
us identify as morning larks or night owls, peaking in our problem-solving
skills and focus at particular times of the day, creative thinking actually
works better at non-optimal times. So, if you’re a morning lark, your brain will
be better at finding creative insights at night, when you’re tired.

The reason behind this is that a tired brain struggles to filter out
distractions and focus on one thing. It’s also more likely to wander off on
tangents. While that seems like a bad thing when you’re working, creative
thinking actually benefits from distractions and random thoughts. Research has
shown that we’re better at “thinking outside the box” at our non-optimal times.

advertisement

advertisement


2. EXERCISE CAN IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY

We know exercise is good for us for lots of reasons, but here’s one more.
Studies have shown that exercise can improve our ability to think creatively.
When researchers had half the participants in a study perform an exercise video
while the other half simply watched a video, those who had exercised
outperformed the others in terms of divergent thinking–or, coming up with more
possible solutions to a problem.


I love the way it’s explained in this Psychology Today article:

> “Sweat is like WD-40 for your mind–it lubricates the rusty hinges of your
> brain and makes your thinking more fluid. Exercise allows your conscious mind
> to access fresh ideas that are buried in the subconscious.”

3. AMBIENT NOISE LEVELS ARE BEST FOR CREATIVITY

I actually thought silence might turn out to be the best sound for creative
thinking, but it turns out that ambient noise levels are just right. Unlike loud
music or silence, ambient noise levels have proven to be perfect for improving
creative thinking.

advertisement


Silence, in fact, actually helps us to sharpen our focus, so it’s useful for
intense problem-solving or detail-oriented tasks. Creative thinking, on the
other hand, requires the kind of ambient buzz of sound that you might find in a
café to promote broader thinking and new ideas.

So much so that tools like Coffitivity exist to bring that ambient café sound to
your desk:


4. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL: CREATIVITY IS ALL ABOUT MAKING CONNECTIONS


I always thought creativity was about coming up with original ideas, but it
turns out creativity is really just about making new connections between
existing ideas. This is pretty exciting, because it means creativity suddenly
seems less scary: we can all connect things that already exist, right?

advertisement


Even Steve Jobs agrees with this theory of what creativity is all about:

> “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they
> did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it,
> they just saw something.”

Another quote I love about this is by the artist, Austin Kleon:

> “Every artist gets asked the question, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’
> 
> The honest artist answers, ‘I steal them.’”

Research has even found that intelligence is something that comes from physical
connections in the brain:

advertisement


> “Several brain regions, and the connections between them, were what was most
> important to general intelligence.”

“The brain regions important for general intelligence are found in several
specific places (orange regions shown on the brain on the left). Looking inside
the brain reveals the connections between these regions, which are particularly
important to general intelligence. In the image on the right, the brain has been
made partly transparent. The big orange regions in the right image are
connections (like cables) that connect the specific brain regions in the image
on the left.”

5. TRAVELING ABROAD MIGHT IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVE THINKING

The research on this one is still small, but one study showed that for college
students, those who travelled abroad scored higher on creative thinking tests
than those who stayed at their main campus. This particular study followed
students who travelled from their college in the US to take part in a summer
study program in England.

In many countries, cultural norms differ greatly between different states or
areas, so it follows that we might see an increase in creativity from even
interstate travel.

advertisement


6. DIM LIGHTING MAKES US FEEL MORE FREE

I like a lot of natural light in my workspace, and I get quite frustrated in
dark rooms when I need to focus. However, I was surprised to find this research
that proved dim lighting can improve creative performance.

The researchers completed six different studies, which all showed that dim
lighting increased creativity. They found that even without noticing a
difference in visibility, if the lighting around them was dim, participants were
likely to be more creative. The reasoning came from the subconscious feeling of
being more free to explore:

> “…darkness elicits a feeling of being free from constraints and triggers a
> risky, explorative processing style.”

For times when you don’t have control over the lighting around you, you can just
think about being in the dark and it could have an effect:

advertisement


> “Other experiments found that merely priming the idea of darkness–such as by
> taking five minutes to describe an experience of literally being in the dark,
> and recalling how it felt–was sufficient to boost creativity.”

7. BLUE AND GREEN CAN IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE ON CREATIVE TASKS


Color me surprised. Apparently a brief glimpse of green can improve your
creative performance! Another study actually shows that seeing red or blue can
have different effects on our cognitive performance: red helps us with
detail-oriented tasks where we need to focus, whereas blue enhances creative
performance.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll want to paint your office blue or green,
but it’s a helpful tip to keep in mind when you’re working on a creative project
or switching between different types of work.

8. CONSTRAINTS CAN BE BENEFICIAL TO CREATIVE WORK


Another idea I had about creative thinking which was proved wrong is that
freedom leads to more creative ideas. Counterintuitively, it turns out that
constraints can actually increase our creative output. This could be due to
removing the overwhelm of having too many choices. If you’ve ever faced the
hurdle of a blank page, you’ll know what I mean.

advertisement


Writer and actor John Cleese describes creativity as something that can be so
elusive that one almost has to trap it using constraints.

> “You have to create boundaries of space and then you have to create boundaries
> of time.”

One of my favorite examples of amazing creativity coming out of constraints is
an old story in which an author (often Ernest Hemingway, but the true author is
debateable) bet his friends that he could write a whole story using just six
words. Here’s the result:

> “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”

9. A SEPARATE, MESSY DESK CAN IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY

I’ve never been a fan of having a messy desk, but I’m starting to think I might
need to. This research proved that a messy environment leads to more creative
thinking. It also encouraged participants subconsciously to be more drawn to new
things than anything labelled as “classic.”

advertisement


The study also found that a more orderly environment led participants to be more
generous and choose healthier snacks than those in the messy environment.
Perhaps the answer is to have two work spaces, for different types of work, as
writer Austin Kleon does:


His digital desk in the background is where his analytical work takes place,
while the foreground is home to his messy, analog desk for creative thinking
tasks.

10. BEING SLEEPY CAN MAKE YOU MORE CREATIVE

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt especially ready to work when I’m
still waking up. This period of coming out of sleep is called the hypnopompic
state. We often end up with strong visual images lingering from our dreams when
we wake out of REM sleep, when most of our dreaming happens. For this reason,
lots of artists have coveted this just-waking-up period to improve their
creative thinking.

advertisement


Famous surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, was known for using the hypnopompic
state to help him generate creative ideas. He would often nap in a chair,
holding a spoon in his hand. Under the spoon, on the floor, was a tin plate.
When he drifted off to sleep, he’d drop the spoon, and the clattering noise it
made on the plate would wake him up, helping him to latch onto those vivid
images that occur in our dreams.


There’s a lot to remember in here, and no doubt I’ve missed more studies about
how to improve your creative thinking. Changing one thing at a time about your
process or working environment could eventually lead you to incorporating more
of these into your day.

What works best for your creative thinking? Let us know in the comments.

advertisement


This article originally appeared on Buffer and is reprinted with permission.


advertisement

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Belle Beth Cooper is a co-founder of Exist, a personal analytics platform to
help you track and understand your life. She's also a freelance writer

More




VIDEO

Taco Bell innovating with a giant Cheez-It? Sure.
Taco Bell has long been known for its fun and delicious brand collaborations,
and the latest brings back snack nostalgia in the form of Cheez-Its! Check out
this week’s ‘Brand Hit or Miss’ to find out why a Cheez-It 16 times the size of
a regular cracker just might be the brand collaboration we all needed.
More Videos


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