10 Tips to Reach the Synergy of Creativity and Productivity
How long have you been waiting for your muse to come? How often do you stumble upon a creative block when you need to produce a new idea? How often do your solutions seem mediocre but you don’t know how to improve them?
These troubles are common for people who have creative professions — designers, artists, writers, creative directors, etc. Sometimes, even tech people experience a lack of inspiration!
If you are coming across issues mentioned above and feel that your creativity has fallen to the level zero while you have to be productive at work, this article with productivity tips is for you! ;)
Connecting the Dots Between Two Concepts
Can one person be creative and productive at the same time? We believe that it is possible, though many separate these concepts, they consider that one can be EITHER productive OR creative. So, they see these things on the opposite ends of the spectrum while in fact, these concepts are closely related to each other:
- Creativity means noticing fascinating things around you, breaking them up into details and generating something innovative, conceptual and fascinating.
- Productivity allows you to plan your steps towards embodying those creative ideas. It helps you to bring the concept to life and be sustainable.
When these concepts work in synergy, you can work smarter but not harder. Sounds right, yes?
Where Do Problems Start?
You can experience blocks on different stages — when generating ideas, when looking for the best solutions to make them real, in the process of implementation or finalisation. There may be many reasons for that:
- You’re just tired of work, thinking of your next vacation instead of focusing on the results.
- Something demotivates you — people, their decisions, inconvenient working hours or the pressure at the workplace.
- You have tons of ideas but they seem not valuable and you don’t want to choose the best from the worst.
- Your inner perfectionist denies every endeavour saying that it’s not what you’re looking for and as a result, you don’t know where to start.
- May be, troubles in your personal life don’t let you go even in the office!
Well, I may be anything else completely, but we’re here not to analyse when it starts but to discover possible ways for getting out of a creative crises.
How to Make Your Creativity and Productivity to Work In Synergy?
Once one of these elements is fixed, the process will go more smoothly! Check out these productivity tips to boost every component of your work to success!
#1 Take a break from your current tasks
If you have been working hard for a long time and feel that you ran out of energy to continue your work productively, than stop for a while. If you can, take one day off and forget about work! It’s better to spend one day resting than to waste time at work gazing at the screen and stress about all those issues.
Your brain will appreciate a quick reboot. You’ll be surprised how much energy you can get thanks to this day off. Also, this helps to avoid early professional burnouts.
If you can not afford to take the whole day off, simply switch to a different activity. Instead of concentrating on something you are getting frustrated about, organise your office space, sort through your documents and folders or catch up with your colleagues on what they are working on right now.
#2 Look for ideas and find basic ones to improve
Already in Ancient Greece, the great thinker and philosopher Plato said that Ideas are the ultimate realities. These ideas can be found everywhere!
Surely we don’t urge you to read philosophical treatises, all it takes sometimes is to look around. New ideas are always generated by compiling well-known parts. No book would be written without using common letters, so no idea comes from nowhere.
If you have to create something new at work, the easiest way to find ideas is by spying on competitors and enhancing what others have. ;)
#3 Find inspiration elsewhere
Do you remember a scene in a detective movie or a TV show, when the main hero thinks of something in the middle of a private conversation and runs off to solve the crime? This actually happens to everyone! Inspiration or muse, can be found everywhere. Sometimes, even a joke over a coffee break with a friend can inspire your new ideas. What is important is to catch that thought and develop it later.
Our brain functions better and wonders freely, when we are relaxed. When you love what you do at work, it will stay in your subconsciousness and present solutions, when you least expect it.
#4 Communicate!
Human interactions can charge with good mood and motivation, provide you with internal resources that you may lack at the moment, which will help you to keep on track. That goes both for extroverts and introverts. Discuss your thoughts, share your work, get feedback and develop from it! As another philosopher Socrates said, the truth is born in dialogue.
#5 Have a note or a notebook with your ideas
In the era of information, it’s easier to forget anything even using different productivity tips. We consume gigabytes of data every day and our brain physically can’t remember this volume. That’s why even the best ideas can float away among tons of thoughts…
A paper notebook or an app on your phone (for example, Collabio) will be your best helpers in this! Digital notes are even more convenient, as one always have a smartphone at hand, which is not always the case with your notebook and a pen.
#6 Exercise your creativity
This is the point where creativity finally meets work productivity! Any skill requires continuous training and so does creativity. If you want your solutions to be really innovative, you should come up with new ones regularly. This is not an overnight process. A bad idea might lead to a good one, especially, when you share it. Did you know, that numerous authors let them write a bad chapter before they start on a good one? This takes off pressure of perfectionism, relaxes your mind and gives way for genius inside you to come out.
Basically, the more you do, the better will get the quality. After all, practice makes perfect! So, exercising this skill will make you a professional in making prolific and original decisions.
#7 Plan everything
Planning is what makes any process more productive. When you don’t set any structure and deadlines, your way to results prolongs, because you rob yourself of useful stimulus to achieve goals.
Also, a plan allows you to see the whole process from above and break it into baby steps. It answers all the questions: “Why? When? How?”
By the way, we have an article describing top planning techniques. Choose the most suitable one for yourself and start moving towards your goals right away!
#8 Set your “productive hours”
Every person has their individual work productivity cycles throughout the day. You might be inspired and active in the morning or, on the contrary, experience your energy boosts closer to the evening.
Monitor your work every day and define your golden hours and time frames when you can’t seem to be productive. After that, plan your “creative sessions” for that time of exceptional ingenuity. Make sure that no one can interrupt your during that time, prioritise and allocate most important work for that time. Enjoy that state of flow and benefit from a higher work productivity.
#9 Switch tasks from time to time
The daily routine is the most dangerous killer of creativity and work productivity. You’ll risk getting bogged down in monotonous activity without seeing new opportunities. Switching from one task to another can be helpful. Don’t confuse this with multitasking, as it might lead to a mess in your head.
This idea on our list of productivity tips is to stay focused on one task for several hours or so and then switch to another and different activity and focus on it. This helps to stay concentrated and diversifies your workflow.
#10 Beware of distractions
We already mentioned that focus and concentration are crucial. It is extremely fair to any creative process. Once something or someone distracts attention from the process, you may lose a brilliant thought and never remember it later. To prevent this bad luck from happening, watch out for distractions. Ask colleagues not to address you at certain hours, turn off notifications on your phone and log out of social networks on your laptop.
By the way, the strong focus is even more crucial for group work, and Collabio will help to keep it! The technology for cloudless collaboration allows you to work without an Internet connection. So, notifications from friends will wait, and your team can devote all your attention to brainstorming and other important tasks!
