How to be More Creative in Your Career or Business

Schedule time to be creative.

Thinking big and being creative requires uninterrupted time for deep work.

This is going to sound counterintuitive. But set aside specific time for thinking big and being creative. This is the most critical thing you can do to bring more creativity and bigger thinking into your business. 

We tend to think that creativity just comes to us. Out of nowhere. And sometimes that’s true. And when it happens, it’s great. 

You can also train your brain to be creative on demand. 

First things first – set aside the time and create intentional space to be creative and to think big. 

You get to decide how much time is right. You get to decide how often you engage in this type of concentrated thinking. 

There is no magic or right answer. 

Don’t know where to start in deciding how much time to spend?  

Start with a single hour a week or every other week on a dedicated day at a dedicated time. A one-hour period of time that is dedicated solely to innovation, creativity, planning, and goal setting. Do this until it becomes easy and routine. 

In the beginning, the goal is just to make this an easy habit. Make it manageable so that you can stick with it. 

Starting small is always better than not starting at all.

Set yourself up for success by eliminating distractions.

Block this time off on your calendar. Set it to “out of office” or “busy” so that people who can see your availability are less likely to intrude on your time. Use your out of office response if that makes you feel better. Make that time non-negotiable and do not schedule anything else there. 

Do this work away from your devices – laptops, phones, tablets. If you want them for notes or for creating or for a specific technology/app/program, turn off all notifications and close anything other than what you need. 

This idea sounds scary or absurd for many professionals — despite the wealth of evidence that you need a distraction free environment to do your deepest and best work. If it sounds scary or impossible to you, start with dedicating the bite-size amount of time I talked about in my last post. Can you set aside one hour a week, distraction free? Half an hour? That will make it less uncomfortable and ensure that you actually dedicate the uninterrupted time. 

Focus on creation rather than consumption.

Spend this deep thinking time creating, not consuming. Save your consuming for another time. 

There’s nothing wrong with consuming information to help you get ideas for your own business or life, especially if you are consuming critically (i.e., intentionally focused learning on a specific thing you want to create or implement). 

Too much consumption though can inhibit your own creativity. Because it allows someone else’s ideas taking up predominant space in your brain. 

Consumption can also be an avoidance tool. We think we are doing something productive, but in reality we are avoiding creating for some reasons (e.g., because we don’t think we are creativity or don’t think we have any good ideas or are telling ourselves that we don’t know what we do). 

So save the time you set aside for you big thinking as time for pure thinking and creation. Reliance on your brain. Creation of your own ideas. 

The more you create and focus on creating, the easier it gets. 

The more you rely on other people’s ideas, the less creative your brain has to be and the harder it becomes to be creative when you want to be. 

Decide your goals for the think time or deep work time in advance.

Don’t wait until you get to the time you’ve set aside to decide what you’re going to work on. 

Decide that in advance – otherwise you’ll spend that time spinning in indecision instead of being creative and creating. 

Do you want to work on goal setting and planning for your business? 

Do you want to work on content of some kind? 

Do you want to evaluate the last month, quarter, or year and decide what worked, what didn’t, and what you would do differently?

Do you want to use the time to create a business plan or marketing plan for the quarter? 

Do you want to brainstorm or journal on how you can create more time in your schedule or solutions to a problem your clients are facing or something you want to change in your life, business, or practice?

The possibilities are endless. But decide in advance. 

And constrain. One thing at a time. 

Picking too many options leads to overwhelm or confusion, which always lead to inaction and hampers creativity. Or it leads to you not making any progress on anything in particular. 

Keep track of your ideas.

Sometimes we can actually get distracted by our own ideas. If you’re feeling particularly creative during one of your big thinking sessions, you might have several ideas pop up. Then you end up shifting from idea to idea instead of actually creating or making any progress on one idea. 

By having one place where you store all of your ideas, you create safety for your brain – you can acknowledge the idea, reassure your brain that you aren’t going to forget it, and then get back to focusing on whatever it is you started on or whatever you’ve decided is the focus for that particular deep work session. 

This also allows you to have a list of ideas for things you want to spend your thinking time on. 

You can use this running list to help you decide what to focus on during the time you’ve set aside for thinking. 

A ❤️ note for you: Another great way to engage in and learn how to think more creatively? Working with a coach. The whole process is geared towards you learning to use your brain for you and how to think differently and more broadly. Send me an email or sign up for a free call with me at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult to hear more.