10 Tips to Energize your Creativity

Jan Norman at the Orange County Register included some of my creativity tips in her on-line column today. Jan had asked for some ideas on creative thinking and brainstorming.

I have posted the complete article below. For more tips on creativity, communication, teamwork, passion at work, and leadership, please take a look at my book at http://www.maketherightchoicethebook.com/.

You can purchase the book at your favorite book seller. For convenience, here is the link to Amazon.

And now the article:

We all have brainstormed the same way for years. Everyone spends an hour in the conference room, bored and uninspired. Somebody throws out a recycled idea. Everyone rallies behind the idea because they really just want to leave the conference room. Brainstorming should be fun, energetic and productive. Here are a few tips that hopefully will inspire the next great idea.

1. Choose a leader during the creative process. Someone has to keep everyone on track, or you will spend the entire session talking about television shows about attractive detectives solving crimes; attractive doctors saving lives; or attractive detectives and doctors solving crimes, saving lives and romancing each other.

2. Notate everything. Yes, it is a pain to write every idea down. If you don’t, you will forget. We always forget. Take notes, audiotape or videotape the session.

3. Change your location. You don’t always have to meet in the conference room for a brainstorming session. Creativity wants variety. Take a walk to another floor, go outside and sit on a bench or stand around the parking lot. Go to a nearby museum, store, mall, coffee shop or park to brainstorm. Use your surroundings to inspire and motivate you to create.

4. Create fast brainstorming sessions. Do not linger. Nobody looks forward to spending an hour in the conference room to brainstorm. Instead, use quick energy bursts. Everyone run into the room for 15 minutes and create as many ideas as possible. And then everyone must run out. Do this a couple times a day as a surprise. Use the energy to focus and produce ideas. Shorter idea sessions will create more ideas.

5. Relax, and create ideas each day. Take five minutes each day by yourself and think. Don't think about anything in particular. Just think. Take a walk around your building. Go sit on a bench. Leave your cell phone and Blackberry on your desk. Now, just think. Each time you do this you will have an idea. Sometimes it will be a little idea. Sometimes it will be a big idea.

6. Stop creating rules where rules do not exist. If someone says, “This is the way we have always done it,” run away in horror. You are not safe. He or she is a creative zombie and may infect you.

7. Eliminate some of your fears (the fear of failure, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of looking foolish) and your creative energy will increase. Nobody is keeping score. Every great idea in the history of the world was foolish or stupid. How many people walked by Orville and Wilbur Wright’s workshop to tell them they were fools?

8. Expand your possibility box. If the box is bigger, there will be more possibilities. When people want to create ideas, the first instinct is to shrink the possibility box. If you shrink the box, there will be nothing there. Try to expand the possibilities.

9. Find new ways of doing something. Remember, there is always more than one path and way. Don't be so quick to judge.

10. Stop trying to analyze and create at the same time. It is impossible. Someone will offer an idea and our first instinct is to attack like a pack of hyenas. We are analyzing, and we have stopped creating. Instead of attacking, build on the thought and create more ideas. When you have finished creating, then you can start analyzing. Build on each other's ideas. Be open to each other's ideas. Don't have an ego in the creative process. Creativity wants momentum and energy.


Joel Zeff creates energy. His spontaneous humor and vital messages have thrilled audiences for years. As a national workplace expert, speaker and humorist, Joel captivates audiences with a unique blend of hilarious improvisational comedy and essential ideas on work and life. Corporations and organizations nationwide seek him out to motivate and energize their employees on such topics as creativity, communication, teamwork, passion and fun. A former newspaper journalist and public relations executive, Joel started his own consulting business in 1994. His first book, “Make the Right Choice: Creating a Positive, Innovative and Productive Work Life” was just published by John Wiley & Sons.

Joel Zeff and Joel Zeff Creative retain the ownership and rights to this article. This article cannot be reprinted or published without the written consent of the author.