Five Ways to Spark Better/Creative Thinking

Here are 5 ways to get new input that will have you creating more and better ideas continuously.

1. Choose a new way to get to work. This may seem like a small thing, but by going out of your way to find new ways to get to work you are changing your input naturally. You will see new things, think about new things and make new connections.
2. Ask a child how they would solve a problem. Children are not stuck in their ways the same way as adults can be. To them everything is possible. Even if the solution they present is not perfect or even practical it is very likely that it will spark new ideas in your own head.
3. Pick a random magazine to read. Computer programmers have their own favorite magazines, architects know which magazines are hot for architecture and so on. The problem with this is that everybody will be subject to the same stream of ideas. By going into a magazine store and randomly picking a magazine that might be about knitting and then actually reading it you will most likely find that the things you are thinking about have been solved already in another domain. Free ideas (except for the price of the magazine)!
4. Force yourself to make connections. This is a little game you can play with yourself, pick random things around your house (or even better, out of a bag) and force yourself to make connections between the object and the problem or project you are working on. Keep doing it for 10-15 minutes and see what happens.
5. Self impose limits. By imposing limits on yourself your brain will have to work overtime and really get out of its own patterns. If you work with tools, remove the tool you use most frequently and ask yourself how you can accomplish a task in this new situation. Or, why not force yourself to explain a problem without using “shop talk”.

Via Lifehack