30 Methods to Increase Creativity Utilizing the 5 Senses

We hear quite a lot of discuss creativity—however what is creativity, and why do we would like it? Although some folks could dismiss creativity as one thing that issues solely artists, many elements of on a regular basis life permit us to make use of our creativity.

What’s creativity?

Creativity is the flexibility to generate new, authentic concepts. It permits us to identify recent options to issues, suppose outdoors the field, think about new potentialities, and dream up new tales and new experiences to share.

Being artistic means dwelling in an environment of progress, which is without doubt one of the key components of a contented life. We’re happier once we’re rising.

Individuals who train their creativity tend to be more productive, more energetic, more innovative—and creativity makes us happier.

After all, artistic work might also result in emotions of frustration, insecurity, and discouragement! Being artistic typically means struggling to grasp new instruments, making an attempt and failing to realize an thought, and receiving criticism.

However the truth is, happiness doesn’t at all times make us really feel pleased, and even when it’s not at all times straightforward, expressing our creativity is tremendously satisfying.

Why ought to we attempt to increase our creativity?

We’d wish to increase our creativity higher to have the ability to create one thing of curiosity, akin to…

• Writing a household vacation e-newsletter
• Designing our bodily self-presentation: outfits, tattoos, hair, make-up
• Selecting a fantasy-football workforce
• Throwing a celebration
• Dreaming up a brand new advertising technique
• Discovering a brand new option to have interaction a scholar, consumer, or buyer who’s shedding curiosity

Or we would wish to increase our creativity higher to have the ability to remedy an issue in an revolutionary approach, akin to…

• Determining the way to manage all of the stuff that’s saved within the storage
• Re-thinking the way to schedule workforce conferences when some individuals are working remotely whereas others are bodily current
• Planning the right household journey
• Settling a disagreement between two co-workers in a approach that satisfies each of them
• Recognizing an effectivity that saves time and cash

As a result of creativity is so invaluable, we wish to feed our creativity—however how?

If we’re searching for methods to spice up our creativity, right here’s one secret: Faucet in to our 5 senses.

After I began work on my e book Life in 5 Senses, I hoped that by tuning in to my 5 senses, I’d discover a new supply of vitality, love, luck, mindfulness—and creativity.

However I used to be unprepared for simply how sparked my creativity would get! I discovered that after I paid higher consideration to seeing, listening to, smelling, tasting, and touching, I ignited my creativeness and my want to create.

As Yoshida Kenkō wrote, “If we choose up a brush, we really feel like writing; if we maintain a musical instrument in our arms, we want to play.”

By making direct contact with the world, as an alternative of staying caught in our heads or behind a display, we increase our creativity. We attain the thoughts via the physique.

Why do vivid sensory experiences increase creativity?

• They supply the mind with fodder for brand spanking new concepts and connections that spark the creativeness
• They assist us feeling grounded within the current second, and so they additionally fire up previous reminiscences from the previous
• They ignite surprising associations that contribute to recent considering
• They increase our vitality and assist us to really feel refreshed, which then helps us to focus and work

 

How can we increase creativity via our 5 senses?

• By utilizing partaking instruments
• By doing one thing novel, akin to happening an journey to a brand new place
• By having fun with a very intense sensory expertise
• By intentionally evoking reminiscences

 

How may we tie these methods to the 5 senses?

Fortuitously, it’s straightforward to spice up our creativity via our 5 senses with out spending quite a lot of time, vitality, or cash.

We’ve all heard the same old solutions: pay shut consideration to your breath; relish a single sip of espresso; discover the colours of the sky. These are useful—however a bit acquainted. Take into account these:

Seeing

1. Create the sight environment that fireplace your creativeness—I want order, area and room to work, however different folks favor a profusion of piles, toys, and instruments
2. Use a colour printer as an alternative of black and white
3. Put a plant in your desk
4. Go outdoors, and as you stroll across the neighborhood, go searching with the eyes of a vacationer. The daylight itself will allow you to really feel extra alert and centered, and adopting the attitude of a vacationer will allow you to see odd sights in a brand new approach. Have a look at the bumper stickers on that automotive! Why is that canine carrying all these garments?
5. Go to a film in the course of the day
6. Wander round a museum, e book retailer, division retailer, or huge drug retailer—pay shut consideration to belongings you often overlook
7. Sit someplace with quite a lot of foot site visitors, and pay shut consideration to the folks as they stroll by—how do they act, how do they gown, how do they work together?
8. Shut your eyes, select a room out of your childhood dwelling, and attempt to visualize it with as a lot element as attainable

Listening to

9. Create the sound environment that fireplace your creativeness. Do you’re employed greatest with sounds of music, silence, or the busy hum of a espresso store?
10. Hearken to a style of music you’ve by no means listened to earlier than
11. Go to the Nostalgia Machine and hearken to a music from the yr you graduated from highschool—what reminiscences does it evoke?
12. Flip off your smartphone notifications so your focus isn’t damaged by pings

Smelling

13. Determine a odor that you just affiliate with creativity and produce it into your atmosphere. For me, the smells of an previous paperback e book, college paste, or a recent pack of printer paper make me really feel like writing.
14. Should you really feel caught, take a second and tune in to a robust odor akin to espresso, peanut butter, or Sharpies, or perhaps a dangerous odor, like rubbish or a uncared for fridge—a robust sensation will allow you to really feel grounded in your physique
15. Go to a spot with a robust odor atmosphere—a bakery, a restaurant, a bath-products store—and attempt to determine the totally different components of the smells round you
16. Take a deep sniff of one thing that holds sturdy reminiscences. The odor of recent asphalt jogs my memory of highschool (from a summer season job), the odor of Tea Rose fragrance jogs my memory of faculty, the odor of child powder jogs my memory of my husband. Sturdy reminiscences fireplace up associations that spark creativity.

Tasting

17. Recognize the style of a single almond, one olive, or one mouthful of apple. Actually discover the style, the feel, the mouthfeel
18. Attempt a dish that you just’ve by no means eaten earlier than; new experiences spark new associations
19. Invent a brand new sort of sandwich, pizza topping, or ice-cream taste
20. Eat along with your non-dominant hand—the additional effort will allow you to take note of the bodily expertise and in addition shake up your ideas
21. Purchase your self a deal with that you just at all times needed as a baby however have been hardly ever capable of have—I used to be hardly ever allowed to have mushy drinks
22. Style one thing that holds sturdy reminiscences. For me, Eating regimen Peach Snapple brings again floods of reminiscences from legislation college. These associations convey recent concepts.

Touching

23. Placing attention-grabbing instruments in our arms typically sparks our creativity—splurge on a device that can immediate you to play and experiment. I lately bought a gimbal for my smartphone and have been educating myself to make use of it. So many potentialities!
24. Put up a whiteboard so you possibly can sketch your concepts as an alternative of typing them. My sister Elizabeth Craft is a Hollywood show-runner, and she or he retains an eight-foot whiteboard in her dwelling workplace
25. Use a distinct type of notepad
26. Use felt-tip pens in lovely colours as an alternative of the same old, boring black and blue
27. Maintain a fidget spinner, pop toy, remedy dough, or different contact device close by. Once you’re caught, exercise along with your arms may help focus and stimulate your thoughts.
28. Go to an art-supply or office-supply retailer, craft retailer, ironmongery store, gardening middle, cooking retailer, farmers market—anyplace the place you’ll see numerous supplies and gear. Don’t fear about utilizing something; simply wander
29. Take a bathe
30. In a glass jar, accumulate all of the little toys, gimcracks, and goofy trinkets you possibly can spherical up. Once you want inspiration, dump out the objects and put them again within the jar, one after the other

Additionally, keep in mind that every of us is totally different. Pay shut consideration to what sort of sensory experiences spark your creativity.

For my e book Life in 5 Senses, I made a decision to go to the Metropolitan Museum on daily basis for a yr—and I nonetheless haven’t stopped. This day by day behavior is ideal for me. It’s each structured and unstructured; it’s predictable but at all times novel; it will get me up on my ft and strolling (strolling can also be nice for creativity); it places me in an atmosphere that’s vivid, intense, and sparks surprising associations.

The Met overwhelms my sense of sight, after all, nevertheless it additionally stimulates my senses of listening to, smelling, and touching, and after I cease for a cup of espresso, my sense of tasting as nicely.

For me, visiting the Met boosts creativity. For another person, nevertheless, music could be a richer supply of creativity. Studying to play a brand new instrument, playing around with a harmonica, listening to new music or feeling nostalgic from music from the previous…these workouts don’t attraction to me, however others discover them enormously suggestive.