Staying Creative while WFH

Did working from home started out as an exciting adventure but now it’s draining you and your creative mojo? One of the upsides to working from an office was the spontaneous conversations that happened by the water cooler or in the staff kitchen. Those little pockets of time often sparked one idea after another. Sadly, they have gone by the wayside as we’ve limited our outside contact.  

Trying to jumpstart your creativity when working from home won’t happen the same way. Instead, you’ll need to try a novel approach and likely resort to technology to help you out!  Check out three ways to stay creative while working from home. 

1. Lateral Thinking. If you’re spinning your wheels and feel blocked as you try to solve a problem, try engaging in the concept of “lateral thinking” where ideas are generated from indirect methods. This is a great activity for one person or small teams faced with roadblocks. Start by stating the problem, out loud or on paper, and then visit Brainsparker or Oblique Strategies. Take the prompt given and apply it to your challenge for a fresh perspective and a new way of thinking. 
2. Creative Challenges. If you find the days are all smushing together and boredom has set in, try waking up your brain with a creative challenge. 99u has five classic challenges that are easy and quick. How about creating a dedicated Slack channel or starting a group text to explore these challenges together? For those wanting a longer creative challenge, try The 100-day project. Technically it starts in April of each year, but that doesn’t mean you can do it anytime you want. Gather up a group of colleagues who need a spark and keep each other motivated as you work to create something new for 100 days. You can even pick a theme! 
3. Constrain Yourself. Sometimes too many options are paralyzing, so what about doing the opposite and creating a narrow parameter to help you think outside the box? Depending on the type of problem you’re working to solve, you could limit materials, color palette, time, or words.  So get your team together, brush up on how to harness the power of constraints, and jumpstart your next creative project. 
    

We’re cheering you on and can’t wait to see what you create with your new resources! Tag us at #heypopcreativeathome