Enhancing My Creativity

Every day I try to go for a walk around campus while at work.  I do this for two reasons.  First, to add a little bit of exercise to my day so I'm not just sitting at a desk for eight hours.  And second, to break up the monotony of my day by giving myself something new to think about each day.  This helps me continue to think creatively.

I've read multiple books by Keith Sawyer, a creativity researcher.  His latest book. Zig Zag, details eight steps to enhancing creativity.  I highly recommend it if you get a chance.  One of the things he talks about in the book is that in order to think creatively when you need to you can't restrict yourself to only think creatively at those times.  You have to practice creativity and constantly train your creativity, much like your muscles and your education.  Step three of this process is Look.  This step challenges you to look differently at various things.

So I've decided to use my daily walks as a way to Look differently.  Every day I challenge myself to look for something different and try to do something with what I've found.

- Some days I try to look for different shapes and notice where I see those shapes and try to determine if there is a pattern to where I see the shapes.  (In case you were wondering, there are very few circles to be found at UA.)

- Some days i give myself a particular color to look for and pay attention to all the places I see that color.

- Some days I notice all the people who are using their phone and try to create stories for each of them about what they are saying, texting, listening to.

- The other day I tried something new and tried to look for random letters.  At the end of the walk I took those random letters and tried to create different phrases and words.

Invariably, I often find myself distracted by other things along my way only to find myself finding something that triggers my mind back to my goal.  It's a really a fun way to spend 20 minutes a day.  And it's a challenge to come up with new things every day to challenge myself with.  But ultimately, I think it helps keep me thinking creatively more consistently.