What practices do you utilise to help encourage Creativity?

I think we need to all create our own reality or be consumed by the negative state of global affairs. I enjoy decorating and a little weed always ignites my creative side. Not that I need it but it is an enhancing factor I enjoy on occasion. Whether that is for writing, decorating, or other creative endeavors, it helps keep you in the zone and let your creative energies flow.

I worked in interior design for years and my favorite thing to do was take, what I call , ” a mini vacation.” Stock up on groceries, lock my gate to the property, turn off the phones, technology, get high and paint or re-arrange or do a garden project. My favorite thing, to be high and creating.

As a an advertising creative director, I often mentored younger “creatives” on this. I would tell them, sometimes just sleeping on a creative challenge enables your brain to solve or at least begin solving it. In case case, simply getting away from the problem for a while is a whole lot better than staying laser-focused on it for too long a time. The brain needs replenishing.
Music, movies, books, hikes, talking with friends… such activities and many others enables the brain to soak up new input, which will become the grist for new creative ideas.

I also told them, don’t think you have to be sitting at a desk or in a “brainstorming meeting” to come up with a great ideas. Mine come in the shower, in the car, right before I fall asleep or wake up in the middle of the night… it’s amazing how and from where new ideas come.

And about brainstorming sessions… doing this with other “creatives” can be quite useful, but certain rules have to apply, the main one being, NO IDEA IS A BAD ONE, at least in the initial meeting. Jot down every idea than anyone comes up with on a whiteboard and then later, that list can be winnowed down to the pearls.