Simple steps to increased creativity

This is the second in a trilogy exploring simple ideas that develop creativity. The first was called Landscape not Portrait and encouraged us to turn our paper round and let the landscape page change our mindset. This blog says take a bath rather than a shower and feel the difference.

Human beings are all creative beings but some more than others and some with more difficulty than others. Discover here how taking a bath could turn your creative life around.

This is not about bathing, not about warm water and not about soapy suds improving your creativity. This is about lying still and relaxing until you pass the fifteen minute mark. Fifteen minutes is key to creativity as your mind changes as it slides past the quarter of an hour.

Interruptions happen every few minutes in these days of multiple media communications. We rarely have fifteen minutes of focused time and the extra creative juices never flow. There are emails, LinkedIn, Twitter and open plan offices and they all lead to interruptions. The relentless noise of the modern world severely hampers our creativity.

We need to get away, find a quiet space and do the organisational equivalent of taking a bath. Psychologists recognise that after fifteen minutes the brain changes, solutions come into the mind and ideas flow. My advice is to focus on one project, one piece of work for ninety minutes with maybe thirty minutes of extra time. This gives you a solid hour or more in the creative zone.

A shower is quick and gives you barely time to think. Take a bath, keep your notebook by the tub and wait for your new creativity. “I’m not creative!” may be a frequently heard cry in offices up and down the country but take the equivalent of a bath and see your life differently. Slow down, cut the interruptions and change yourself and then your clients, colleagues and customers will be changed too.

Ivor Reveley is 4i Solutions’ Director of People Development