Every week, we will post a new creativity challenge. These challenges will vary from individual to team based.
This week’s challenge: Improve your workspace to improve your brain
What can you do to improve your personal workspace? Studies have shown that an inspiring workspace can improve productivity as well as creativity.
In the Journal of Neuroscience study entitled, “Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex,” it states,
“Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system.” LINK
All of which means: Clear the junk off your desk and you’ll work better.
So that is one way to improve your environment. Simplify. How can you simplify your current workspace? Remove items that you really don’t need is one obvious way. But how about replacing them with something that is inspiring and conducive to the creative process?
For example, that framed vacation picture on your desk is nice — but what if you forced yourself to take a new picture every week and swapped them out, periodically?
The temptation is to take hundreds of photos in one day and be done with it. Do not.
By making time every week, you are training your brain that you need creativity time. And your brain will reward you. The more you do this, the more interesting the photos (or sketches, if you prefer to draw) will get.
I like to do a mix of drawing and photography. Your mileage may vary.
Prefer a bigger audience?
If you’d prefer to make your creative output reach more folks than just folks who walk past your desk, you’re in luck. Two variations of this challenge appear on Instagram. One is the #photoadaychallenge and the other is #sketch_daily, the latter of which has over 1.2 million posts. By the way, #creativity has over 9 million posts.
Want unfiltered creativity? Kids.
Do you have children? Put their artwork on your desk.
I know. It’s not cool to have children’s artwork on your desk. Kill your ego for a moment.
Children have no ego about their art and no fear of creation. Some of their work is truly unusual—even surreal.
I hope you’ll try simplifying your workspace and taking a photo (or drawing) challenge to make your workspace more inspirational. Let me know how it goes.
