Ten Ways to Routinely Break Your Routines

This semester I'm taking a class called Creativity in Marketing. It's only been three weeks but I'm really loving it so far. Basically the class challenges me to think outside the box or to approach situations in such a way that creativity will come naturally to the solution. This week we were taking notes and my professor had a slide with ten ways to routinely break your routines. Immediately I knew I wanted to share these tips here on the blog. It's so easy to get stuck in a routine or in an uncreative rut (yup...I just said uncreative).


(me getting out a creative rut when I was a youngster)


Here are some ways for you to spark a bit of creativity in your life.

1) Hold a conversation with a new person everyday

There are some crazies out there, but also? There are some phenomenal people who can tell you things you only dreamed of hearing. Branch out, meet new people, and experience new situations. Obviously avoid people who are ax-wielding murderers but other than that you should be pretty safe doing this.

2) Avoid wasting time

This is good for those of us who like to procrastinate. If this is you, try to schedule your activities for a week (and include things that you wouldn't normally do). Maybe you'll find that by wasting less time you do something extraordinary!

3) Waste time

This is good for people like me. I plan every waking moment of my life and feel horribly guilty when I am "wasting time". It might do me some good to take a step back and roll with the punches!

4) Use lunch time

Whether or not I eat lunch is always a gamble. However, I always use breakfast time. While I eat my breakfast, I make it a point to read a book or read some blogs. I think its the perfect start to my day.

5) Read easy, fast books.

I know that a lot of people get caught up in reading difficult books because it sounds more chic to say "I just finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" than it is to say "The only books I've ever finished are the Twilight Books". However, sometimes just the act of reading something fun and refreshing is enough to spark a creative idea within you. I am not advocating reading Twilight (I'm not a fan...) but I am advocating a little less pretension when choosing reading material :).

6) Play with building blocks

My professor asked us all if we still had building blocks and we laughed at him. Then he said that he still has a set of blocks from when he was a child and frequently uses them when he's at a loss for ideas. I added "Buy legos" to my to-do list this week. Who knows, maybe going back to the basic will help my creativity?

7) Create art

I feel like most of my readers have this down. Creating any sort of art can work wonders in getting you out of a rut. Paint, draw, sculpt, color, paper mache, knit, etc. When you don't know what else to do, just make anything at all. It is so therapeutic!

8) Experience wider variety of music

There is a ton of music out there and 99% of creative professionals will tell you they have certain playlists for various collections/times of year/moods/etc. Music works wonders in helping creativity.

9) Change your schedule

This just keeps things lively. I try to do this as frequently as possible (even changing little things like waking up 30 minutes earlier so I can take a longer route to school). I'd recommend it

10) Ask questions then question the answers

I see this step as just soaking up as much knowledge as possible. There are so many wonderful things to learn about and you never know when that knowledge will come in handy. Always question the world around you--never stop growing.


xoxo
Mal