5 Top Tweaks For Improved Creative Thinking
1. Keep your desk a little messy
In a study recently published in the journal Psychological Science, students met in either a messy or an organised room and had to come up with a new use for ping pong balls (a standard test of creativity). Judges rated the ideas, without knowing which rooms the groups were in. The result? Solutions from the messy room were gauged to be more interesting and innovative than those from the neat one. So if all your paper clips are lined up like soldiers and your books are in alphabetical order, throw caution to the wind and muddle things up a bit!
2. Color yourself blue
Blue is the hue for creative thinking, a series of experiments from the University of British Columbia found. More than 600 participants did cognitive tasks that demanded either creative or detail-oriented thinking. The tests were performed on computers that had either a blue, red, or white background screen. The blue screens encouraged participants to produce twice as many solutions during brainstorming tasks as other screen colours. (Conversely, red screens improved performance on tasks like proofreading and memory recall by as much as 31 percent, compared to blue.) “Through associations with the sky, the ocean, and water, most people associate blue with openness, peace and tranquillity,” study author Juliet Zhu told ScienceDaily.com. This makes people feel safe about being creative and exploratory, she said.
3. Dim the lights
Turning the lights down “elicits a feeling of freedom, self-determination, and reduced inhibition,” which is key to imaginative thinking, according to German authors of a study recently published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. The researchers assigned a group of 114 students to work on a series of problem-solving tasks that require creative thinking. Those in a dimly lit room (150 lux) solved significantly more problems than those in a brightly lit room (1,500 lux). (Typical office light is about 500 lux.)
4. Work when you’re tired
It sounds counterintuitive, but night owls may actually be more creative first thing in the morning, and early birds may do more innovative thinking late at night, according to a study by researchers at Michigan State University and Albion College. The researchers believe that you use more creative thinking when you’re less inhibited, which happens when brain fog compromises your attention span. So early-bird students, for example, may do well to save art and creative writing projects for later in the evening.
5. Change up your routine
Psychology Today reported that Dutch study participants who prepared their breakfast sandwiches in reverse order had a more productive brainstorm than those who made them their usual way. “If you want to get into a creative mindset, do your normal routine in a completely different way,” cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, said after analysing the research for PT. “Write with your other hand. Moonwalk backwards on your way to work. Eat something new for lunch. Smile at strangers. Be weird. With your brain re-shuffled, you’ll be in a better position to be creative.”
The full article originally featured on Reader’s Digest.
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