Sometimes you can feel your creativity slipping away and it can be hard to regain. Creative and innovative thinking is important for any job, follow these simple steps to find your creative side again!

• Listen to music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Music by Bach, or any classical music, has been proved to not only improve creativity but also increase your capacity for intelligent thinking and problem solving. Grab a CD and pop your headphones in while at your desk, and you may start to see results almost immediately!
• Brainstorm. Although it is a bit of a cliché, brainstorming does help with coming up with new ideas, and it also helps you decide which idea is best. It is better to do this with colleagues, but you can do it by yourself too!
• Carry a notebook and pen with you at all times. Sometimes ideas pop in and out of your head so fast that you can’t remember them when you need to. Carrying a notebook and pen allows you to write these ideas down when they come to you. Even if they aren’t all great, some of them no doubt will be.
• Open a dictionary. By randomly selecting a word and formulating ideas around this concept or word, you are creating a boundary. Although it seems strange, sometimes freedom can inhibit creativity. By creating boundaries, your creativity will flare.
• Define your problem. Sit down and write out all of the aspects of the problem or job, once you have broken it down, you will clearly see what needs to be done, and this frees you up to think of solutions.
• Go for a walk. If you are feeling like a zombie and keep hitting a roadblock with ideas, a change in atmosphere, fresh air and exercise will get your brain working again.
• Turn off the telly. There have been studies proving that watching television stops creative thinking, and also slows your brain activity. You will be surprised by how instant the results of this one are – it is guaranteed to help.
• Just say “no” to drugs and alcohol. Although after a couple of glasses of wine you may feel more creative, some drugs and alcohol slow the speed of your brain and inhibit creativity quite severely.
• Read as much as you can about anything possible. Literature not only exercises your brain it also fills you with inspiration which helps you create creative connections more easily.
• Put your brain on the treadmill. Brains, like bodies, need exercise to keep fit. If you don’t exercise your brain, it will get flabby and useless. Read as much as you can, talk to intelligent people and sometimes disagree with people (arguing exercises your brain a great deal as you are taking in new information and also looking for ways to make your point).

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