Kathy Ennis, LittlePiggy
These top ten tips are not rocket science, but they will put a rocket in your profit and make 2022 a truly sensational year for you and your business.
Tip tip 5 is about how to stay innovative and creative.
Stay innovative and creative. Easier said than done, perhaps?
Sometimes identifying your business idea in the first place can be difficult, but then you have to constantly think of new and interesting ways to engage and communicate with your customers. Add to that the need to find ways to keep your enthusiasm (and accountability) for your own business fresh (particularly difficult if you are a one-person micro business) and innovation and creativity can be REALLY HARD.
So, here are five ideas for you to boost your innovation and creativity
1. Change Your Space
If you always work in the same space, at the same desk, sitting in the same chair you will encourage your brain to think in exactly the same way. Creativity and innovation come from allowing the brain to think differently; to make connections or find inspiration in places it has never been before. Changing your space can be a great way of encouraging creative and innovative thought – go to a coffee shop, go for a walk, do some exercise, work from a different desk sitting in a different chair, stand up rather then sit down – all of these things can help.
2. Keep an IDEAS Book with You at All Times
Where do you have your best ideas? With me, it’s when I am driving; with a very good friend it’s when she is in the shower. The point here is that our best ideas often sneak up on us. The best time to have a great idea? It’s when you are thinking about something completely different – like driving carefully or washing your hair!
So having a method for capturing those ideas when they pop into your mind is essential. Otherwise they will pop straight back out again and will be lost. Therefore you need a place to immediately record these ideas and a notebook is just one example. How do I (safely) do it while I am driving. Simple. My car has a Bluetooth phone connection so I call my office and leave a message on my answer phone. And what about my friend in the shower? Would you believe it, she has waterproof a pad of paper and a pen!
3. Do Mundane Things
Following on from creating a method to record ideas, mundane tasks such as filing, cleaning, sorting out papers etc can be a method of allowing your brain free reign to have flights of creative fancy.
4. Talk to People
Obviously getting out of your space could mean attending a networking event or a training course where you will meet other business-focussed people who may act as a spark for your imagination. However, talking to anyone can also help. Yes, you may feel a bit odd striking up conversations with complete strangers, but those people in the queue at Tesco, or the bus stop, or the train journey home can be just as helpful (and if we all did it could make the world a nicer place too!)
5. Do Something Child-Like
The problem with getting older is that we lose the sheer joy and enthusiasm for life that children have. Give a child a plain cardboard box and it’s a rocket ship, a fort, a fairy castle.
Do something child-like – run round the park, play a board game, make something out of a cardboard box – you will be amazed at the ideas you can come up with. And you will have had some fun too.
Next Steps?
If you’re unsure about how to implement any of the suggestions I have made in this article, why not take advantage of my free, half-hour mentoring session?
What have you got to lose?
