Introduction to Creative Thinking

Creative thinking is a powerful skill that anyone can develop with intention and practice. It is at the core of my photography process. It's all about generating new ideas, exploring different viewpoints, and finding innovative ways to approach challenges in life and work. By nurturing creative thinking, you can expand your imagination, discover fresh solutions, and open yourself up to a world of possibilities. According to the Harvard Business Review, embracing creative thinking not only leads to more original ideas but also enhances productivity and satisfaction in both personal and professional spheres. To spark your creativity, try activities that stimulate your mind and senses—visit an art museum to immerse yourself in visual inspiration, use mind mapping to organize and connect your thoughts, or take a walk in nature to let your imagination roam free. These practices can help you develop your creative abilities, enrich your thinking, and bring more art and innovation into your everyday life.

Improve Creative Thinking

According to author Annie Dillard, how we spend our days is the same as how we spend our lives. However, new research shows that it isn't our days that determine how we spend our lives, but rather our mornings. What we do with our mornings most determines our creativity and happiness throughout the day. To boost your creativity, it takes hard work and deliberate practice—creativity is not just about innate talent, but about consistent effort and the development of your own creative process.

Many people have the misconception that being lazy is the key to creativity, but with effort, everyone has the potential to be creative. While there is a connection between laziness and being creative, if we are not careful, laziness can spiral into full-blown lethargy. Creative expression is not limited to a specific type of person; anyone can develop their own creative process through practice and self-awareness. What we do with our time – from how we plan it to how we execute it – is vital to our innovation, and this starts in the morning. As we will discover, creativity requires abstract thinking, and, as we shall see, it is the ability to provide structure, not just let our minds wander, that encourages this type of thinking. Below is a list of ten habits used by creative people and backed by science that you can make part of your morning repertoire to improve your life and enhance your creativity.

10 Habits to Improve Creativity

1) Being Mindful

It turns out that mindfulness isn't just for Buddhist monks. Mindfulness is the state of being aware. According to studies, meditation increases our mental faculties and is an integral part of creativity. In particular, open-monitoring meditation, in which we stay aware of anything that comes to mind, is best for promoting creativity. This allows new ideas to float freely into our minds without being obstructed by the inhibitors that arise when we focus too much on one thing. According to a study in which subjects meditated using open-monitoring, another form of meditation, or didn’t meditate at all, those who engaged in open-monitoring showed a much greater capacity to generate new ideas.

Mindfulness practices like open-monitoring meditation can enhance creative thought by supporting diverse thought processes, such as divergent and convergent thinking, which are essential for generating original ideas.

Keeping a journal or engaging in a regular writing practice can help capture and develop the ideas that arise during meditation, making it easier to recognize patterns and foster ongoing creativity.

2) Take Time For Yourself

Unless it is urgent, we should resist the temptation to check our e-mails or write to-do lists when we first wake up. We all have obligations that fill our days, so the times we are allowed to be creative must be used to the max. When we get up, we should give ourselves time to focus on tasks that require our creative spark. Use this time to find inspiration and boost motivation for the day ahead.

This doesn’t mean we should forget our obligations or shut off our lives. It means we should start our day by caring for ourselves first. If we don’t take time for ourselves upon waking, we may find that the morning doesn't go by without us having a chance to exercise our creativity. Incorporating a sense of fun into your morning routine can also make creative activities more enjoyable and sustainable.

3) Drink coffee to boost creativity

A morning cup of Joe is known for helping us stay alert through caffeine’s blocking of adenosine receptors in the brain. However, caffeine, a nervous system stimulant, also increases dopamine release in the brain. This neurotransmitter signals a general sense of reward and accomplishment. That good feeling you get after solving a complex puzzle? Dopamine is behind it. Caffeine can also help you solve creative challenges or draw inspiration from new ideas by boosting alertness and focus. By increasing our dopamine levels, we not only feel satisfied when we come up with new ideas, but we are also motivated to keep being creative. Of course, not everyone enjoys coffee, so a nice cup of tea may be just what the doctor ordered. For those sensitive to caffeine, eating a breakfast high in protein and brain-strengthening vitamins, such as an egg with toast, may do the trick.

The creative process is a fascinating journey that unfolds in several stages, from the initial spark of idea generation to the final implementation of your vision. At its core, creativity thrives on divergent thinking—allowing your mind to explore many possibilities before narrowing down to the best solution. This process is supported by the brain’s default mode network, which is activated during moments of introspection and mind wandering. By giving yourself unstructured time to let your thoughts flow, you can unlock new perspectives and tap into your creative potential. The seven tips for developing creativity often highlight the importance of consistent creative practice, embracing challenges, and being open to inspiration from unexpected sources. Remember, creativity is not just about having great ideas—it’s about exploring, experimenting, and allowing your brain the freedom to make unique connections that lead to innovative breakthroughs.

4) Live For Yourself

Creativity comes from within. It may have a basis in external influences, but your ideas come from yourself. This is only possible when you live for yourself – when you do the things you want to do. Steve Jobs said that he looked at himself in the mirror every morning to ask himself if his plans for the day were what he’d want to do if that day were his last. We don’t have to ask ourselves questions in the mirror each morning, but deciding whether we enjoy life is essential.

If what we do daily is boring, we should consider changing some things. Dullness leads to apathy, which brings about mind-numbing lethargy, which is one of the banes of creativity. By doing the things that give us enjoyment, we open ourselves up to becoming more active and, thereby, more creative.

Taking on a new project or stepping outside your comfort zone can further enhance your creativity by encouraging you to try new approaches, overcome fears, and discover new interests.

5) Don’t be too focused on creativity.

Being fully functional is essential to creativity. According to studies, when we are juggling and our thoughts haven’t yet gained much focus, we are most creative.

Creativity relies heavily on a broad approach; when our thoughts are not too narrowly focused on one task, we can take it. This isn’t the same as not thinking about anything. Still, it allows a myriad of ideas to enter our minds without analyzing each detail, giving us a broad perspective on everything – seeing things in a wide-screen view with the mind’s eye. Approaching your morning routine creatively can help you discover new ways to generate creative solutions throughout the day. We can continue this unfocused approach by taking time to exercise first thing in the morning. Whether lifting weights or going for a brisk morning walk, a workout will promote the release of endorphins and help distract our brains from focusing too much on one thing.

6) Don't Have Too Much Variation

While some variation can break the monotony and get your creative juices flowing, too much can waste time. Influential figures such as former President Barack Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg limit their choices in the morning (in their cases, what to wear) so they can focus on more important things. Reducing time constraints in the morning helps preserve mental energy, allowing for more creative thinking throughout the day. As former President Obama put it, he has “too many other decisions to make” to worry about which color suit he’ll wear (he always picks either blue or gray). Freeing up time for essential problems or tasks, rather than focusing on mundane choices such as what to wear, is an integral part of widening the time window to develop ideas and put our creativity to work.

7) Keep your day job for improved creativity

While focusing too much on a task can limit the abstract thinking required for creativity, it’s also possible for the reverse to occur – for our thoughts to become so scattered that we space out and cannot think of any ideas, old or new. A job is an excellent way to keep our brains working and to provide the structure that prevents us from becoming too scattered in our thoughts. As creative thinking requires taking a broad approach to problems from varied angles, having a job that requires multiple tasks is conducive to this way of thinking. Students, like working adults, can also benefit from structured routines to support their creative development. Rather than sitting around all day waiting for an idea to pop into our heads, we are most creative when we are structured and work, coming home to relax and let our thoughts meander a bit, but not too much, while we unwind.

8) Stick to a Routine

Creativity and randomness are not only different things but also often mutually exclusive. Taking a broad approach does not mean letting our minds wander or focusing too much on something – for instance, what we will do with our days. Constantly changing what we do in the morning detracts from the time and mental energy needed to develop creative ideas.

Not knowing what we will do when we should already be going about getting started on our day takes time and is mentally draining. Much like physical exercise, mental exercise has its limits. There’s only so much we can do before we become exhausted and must rest and recuperate. Coming up with a routine and abiding by it is the best way to avoid the time-robbing, mentally distracting, and often little, more or less insignificant decisions. Incorporating activities like writing or using colored pencils into your routine can further support creative growth. Also, a routine can become “mesmerizing,” as author Haruki Murakami said. Thus, far from inhibiting creativity, following a routine can induce a sort of meditation as we do things through muscle memory and mental reflexes rathe" than excess"ve focus and thought.

9) Plan for Creativity

If you wake up not knowing what to wear, what to eat, who to call in the morning, etc., you will have to spend a good part of your day (if not all) making analytical decisions. If our time is consumed with analytical thinking, we don’t allow space for new ideas to form. However, far from needing our thoughts to wander completely, creativity requires a different kind of thinking – abstract thinking. Knowing what we will do beforehand allows usto not get up and (to appropriate a famous slogan) “just do it.” Planning for the future can set the stage for creative breakthroughs by freeing your mind from routine decisions and allowing the brain's default mode network to envision new possibilities.

For example," a morning routine "routine that supports creativity might include setting out your clothes and preparing breakfast the night before, so you can spend your brain's time journaling or brainstorming ideas instead of making small decisions. Just doing what we need to do, rather than deciding what needs to be done, allows us to complete tasks more efficiently and free up valuable time for thinking abstractly and coming up with the next great idea. It allows for the aforementioned “mesmerism” that comes from making a routine and sticking to it daily.

10) Be Grateful

Creativity and inspiration go hand in hand. Inspiration can come from many sources, from various people and things. Even the most creative thinkers experience mental burnout or periods when their minds go blank when trying to develop something new. Facing a blank page can be intimidating, but using examples like sample projects, pictures, or videos, or taking the time to talk with others, can help overcome this block. When we have to navigate these trying bumps in our creativity, we can use the time to thank those who have inspired us or stood by us through our ideas.

So, rather than being an impasse to our ability to come up with new ideas, we can turn these little bumps into an opportunity to get back to the root of why we live the way we live. Showing gratitude is a good way not just to make others feel happy for helping us, but also to reconnect with our purpose in life. Returning to our roots is essential for re-evaluating our lives and ensuring they still have the purpose we intend for them to have. Also, thanking people who have inspired us makes them want to continue encouraging and supporting us. Quite often, what may start as a simple expression of gratitude to a friend or family member becomes a talk in which new ideas are formed and shared, giving us the spark for more creativity.

In our present time, the Age of Information, it may seem that all the good ideas have been taken and that we are just spending our lives learning from those who came before us. Our school days are often filled with memorizing various dates and facts rather than coming up with our own ideas. Creativity can, therefore, be challenging to harness. We all have days in which we can’t seem to get our creative juices flowing, and these days of lackluster creative performance can often discourage us from coming up with new ideas. To be consistently innovative, we must be consistent in our daily lives – and this starts with our morning routines, as soon as we wake up. It is through being mindful of the things around us, not focusing too hard on mundane tasks, having that morning cup of coffee, fitting in some exercise, planning and executing a daily schedule the night before, having structure in our lives via a job or other means, sticking to our routines, not getting too caught up with changing everything, setting life according to our standards and desires, and taking the time to show our gratitude to those who have inspired and supported us that we find the means to be consistent and keep our creativeness alive and well.

Environmental Factors

Your environment plays a crucial role in shaping your creative thinking and fueling idea generation. A cluttered or chaotic space can make it difficult for your brain to focus, while a thoughtfully designed environment can inspire creativity and imagination. To create a space that supports your creative process, try incorporating natural light, comfortable seating, and artwork or decor that sparks inspiration. Even small changes, like adding plants or rearranging your workspace, can make a big difference. Don’t underestimate the power of taking a break—stepping outside for a walk or doing a few stretches can refresh your mind and help you overcome creative blocks. Research shows that a change of scenery or a brief pause from your routine can reignite your creativity and lead to new bursts of inspiration. By intentionally shaping your environment, you set the stage for more focused thinking, greater creativity, and a steady flow of original ideas.

Creative Problem Solving

Creative problem-solving is about approaching challenges with an open mind and a willingness to explore new ideas. It combines divergent thinking, imagination, and analytical skills to find innovative solutions that might not be immediately obvious. To strengthen your creative problem-solving abilities, engage in brainstorming sessions, use mind mapping to visualize connections, and experiment with different approaches to the same problem.

Collaborating with others and seeking feedback can also introduce new perspectives and spark fresh ideas. Embracing a growth mindset—seeing setbacks as opportunities to learn—can help you overcome obstacles and achieve greater success. Remember, creativity thrives when you’re willing to take risks, challenge assumptions, and keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

Trusting the Process

Trusting the process is vital to creative thinking and idea generation. It means letting go of the fear of failure and embracing the uncertainty that comes with exploring new territory. As the Harvard Business Review highlights, self-doubt can be a significant barrier to creativity, but learning to accept these feelings and move forward anyway is key to unlocking your creative potential.

Permit yourself to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. Practices like journaling, meditation, or simply taking a few deep breaths can help you focus your thoughts and break through creative blocks. Remember, creativity is not a straight path—it’s a journey filled with ups and downs. By trusting the process and staying open to new experiences, you’ll develop resilience, boost your creative confidence, and set yourself up for lasting success.

For a deeper look at how simple movement can unlock new ideas, you can continue the thought in my article on walking and creative thinking.