Exercise your creative brain!

Your brain is like a muscle – a thinking muscle. With exercise it becomes faster, stronger and more flexible. Just as taking the stairs is a time-efficient way to keep your body fit, there are convenient ways to exercise your brain. Tip: if you have children, share these exercises with them. A child’s creative brain is easily developed and their ideas are often applicable to our adult stuff!

First, get the equipment

Get a journal. Keep a small notebook in your pocket or purse. (Yes, your CrackBerry is an alternative.) At home, keep other notebooks by the bed, in the kitchen, by the TV. Once you start exercising your brain more often, ideas and observations will pour out.
Use index cards. Leave a small stack of index cards in handy places. The advantage of this system (over notebooks) is that it allows you to file your notes by topic.

Take your brain out for a jog

You may already be doing some of the things below. The question is, are you paying attention? If you are talking on the phone or making to-do lists in your head, you will lose the benefit. Apply new perspectives to whatever you’re working on.

• Drive or walk home via a different route. Visit a new neighbourhood and notice what is different.
• Browse in a cool place. Go to a design store, toy store or gadget store.
• Read outside your realm. Skim through magazines, newspapers or books you would never buy for yourself.
• Eat out. Try an restaurant with an unfamiliar food or format (e.g. 24 hour diner, sit-on-the-floor Japanese, throw-your-plates-on-the-floor Greek, eat-with-your-hands medieval, etc.) or eat at an unfamiliar time of day (afternoon tea, midnight supper).
• Mingle at the mall. Observe how people shop; how retailers create atmosphere; how products look on display. Think “opposites”: e.g., if you’re working on a challenge related to food, go to a hardware store.
• Visit home grown markets – vegetable stands, antique fairs, flea markets, street fairs, church bazaars, sidewalk sales and lemonade stands. See how people without a merchandising budget present their wares. Listen to home grown sales pitches. Take in the atmosphere (pay attention to your six senses).
• Visit retro stores e.g., vintage clothing boutiques, Goodwill, dusty old junk stores. Allow yourself to travel back in time.
• Explore science and history. Go to museums, science centres, aquariums, planetariums and IMAX films. Bring a kid and see it through his/her eyes.
• Stop by a construction site. Peep through the hoarding and imagine how the finished building will look.
• Visit a theme park. See how the theme carries through and how people respond to it. Allow yourself to be a kid: ride the rides, eat cotton candy, exhaust yourself.
• Travel the world. Stay off the beaten path. Pay attention to every detail. Talk to the locals. Experience local culture and customs.

Stretch your brain muscle

When you have a pause during your day, toss off 5 ideas, good or bad, related to whatever you are doing. The brainstretch comes from producing ideas quickly without pausing to judge. You can do this in the car (try “5 things to do to at a red light”) or during a phone call (“5 ways to entertain yourself while on hold”). If you have children, try this on a car trip (“5 ways to make a cow sing”). Just coming up with the categories is a creative exercise onto itself.

Stay tuned for more BrainStretches coming to this blog soon. They can also be used to warm up a group before an idea meeting!