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Fix your workspace because creativity is about more than talent. In the 1960s, American psychologist Mel Rhodes tried to find the ultimate definition for creativity. He failed.
What Rhodes realised was that Creativity was not a one-dimensional term that could be simply defined. Instead, he described it as a framework… a framework of four parts. He called it the 4P Framework of Creativity.
He held that creativity relies on four pillars and all four pillars need to be present for Creativity to happen
Mostly, we are happy to accept that we need creative people using new and improved processes to make creative products. But what we most often forget about is that the ENVIRONMENT (or Press in Rhodes’ terms) must also lend itself to creative thought or nothing will happen.
Marketed as the model of efficiency and as facilitating excellent communication, the open-plan office has killed creativity stone dead. While it is indeed efficient on certain levels, it is not effective on others.
Firstly, there is too much noise. Creative thought requires internal quiet and a loose kind of focus. External distractions will continually pull you out of a creative frame of mind.
The proximity to other people and their opinions forces us to look outwards, not inwards in our quest to join the dots and compose new ideas
The sea of identical desks, space dividers, great carpets and soothing tones is uninspiring, dull, repetitive and boring.
Do you face a blank wall where you work? Turn your desk around and look out the window. Put up some inspiring or simply beautiful art. Hell, even a motivational poster!
Speak to positive, inspiring people. Speak to people in other fields to yours. Discuss thigs that are NOT work-related. Read books. Go and work at a different desk, in a different building one day a week. Start an hour later, or an hour earlier. Take lunch in a different place.
All of these things will help to jar you out of your set routines, making you look at and think about what is going on around you in new ways. You will not be able to stop yourself from thinking in new ways about what you are working on.
Creativity can be described most simply as a process of joining dots. By disrupting your work environment, you add and re-arrange the dots… this will result in new and different connections, leading to new ideas and new approaches.
Covid19 and WFH (work from Home) has actually given us opportunities like never before to make sure our working environment is more dynamic and inspiring than ever before. But don’t clutter it up and make it noisy… Schedule quiet and thinking time. Read books, listen to music.
You will find that not only are you more efficient, but you will also be more effective. And that will be because you now have all 4 Pillars of creativity supporting you.
So, fix your workspace and go and get em!
Do you need inspiration or just help with getting out there with your ideas? CONTACT ME and lets talk!
Plenty of inspiration, stories, facts and research in the articles I publish. I write about creative events, thinking and research… anything that has creativity hidden in it. Read the articles…
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Creativity will save the world. I share tips, tools and techniques for creative thinking based on scientific research and personal experience. Problem solving is creativity. More about speaking…
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