Creativity and Focus Do Go Together
You might be a creative who wants to find more ways to up your productivity and your focus. But if you’re like me and most creatives, focus might not be your strength. You’re not alone.
Most creatives don’t think in concrete or specific terms when it comes to business things. That’s because the business side feels removed from the creative side. But, I promise that they DO go together and you can tap into the creative side to boost the business side.
There's a proven way that you can boost your creativity to get more accomplished and be able to reach your goals. You have to get specific with your thoughts, though. Just "sort of" having an idea of what you want or need isn’t going to work long-term.
It’s only when something is specific that you can identify it and work on accomplishing it.
- Once you’ve narrowed down what it is you’re after, add a time constraint.
For example, if money is what you need, you wouldn’t spend time saying, “Think about where or how I can get more money.” Instead, you’d say, “What are 5 business models I can put into effect within 10 minutes?” This helps you to develop concrete ways to help take your creativity to the next level.
By having a specific goal with your thoughts, you’ll come up with ideas to improve whatever it is that you need. This step of coming up with ideas within a certain time limit keeps you from wasting time, but it also works for creatives because we don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking of the business side, which can drain creativity and it keeps us focused (or at least provides an easier way to refocus). The ideas that you come up with by adding time constraints can also be put into play faster than if you were vague and spent hours or days trying to come up with a solution.
Another business aspect that some creatives struggle with is marketing.
You might have gone back and forth trying to come up with ways that you could do this, but you weren’t able to pin anything down. Rather than spending a lot of effort thinking about this step, you could say that you were going to make a list of the pros and cons of a certain kind of advertising within 15 minutes.
By giving yourself that time limit, you turn it into a game which can produce quicker results and give you ideas for solutions. Plus, when you’re specific about what you want and you introduce that time limit, it boosts your creativity because your focus is intentional rather than running in different directions. It does this because it’s easier for the mind to focus for shorter periods of time versus thinking that you have several hours or days to come up with something.
So, try it out.
- What are 5 business models I can put into effect within 10 minutes?
- Make a list of the pros and cons of a certain kind of advertising within 15 minutes.
