12 Practical Ways to Boost Your Creativity

Creativity has been valued throughout human history. It has been called “the skill of the future” and is widely recognized as essential for adapting to uncertainty and solving new problems. Research also suggests that creative tendencies—closely related to the personality trait openness to experience—are linked to long-term well-being and health outcomes (Turiano, Spiro, & Mroczek, 2012).

Given its importance, cultivating creativity is a worthwhile goal. But what exactly is creativity, and how can it be developed? This article defines creativity, offers practical steps to boost personal and group creativity, and discusses how schools, workplaces, artists, and musicians can foster a creative climate. We also explore intriguing links between sleep, nighttime habits, and creative insight.

What Is Creativity?

Creativity is the capacity to produce ideas, solutions, or works that are both original and valuable. It shows up in the arts—painting, music, literature—but also in mathematics, engineering, science, business, and education. Whenever a problem needs solving or new expression is sought, creativity can be present.

Creativity is not reserved for a gifted few. Research indicates that creative skills can be nurtured in most people through practice, the right mindset, and supportive environments (Neumann, 2007). The rest of this article outlines concrete ways to foster individual and collective creativity.

6 Ways (+1) to Be More Creative

Below are six practical approaches to enhance your creative thinking, plus one invitation to add your own tip.

1. Walk regularly

Walking stimulates cognition and often helps ideas surface. Historical examples—like mathematician William Hamilton’s canal-side insight about quaternions—show how movement and fresh surroundings can trigger breakthroughs. Controlled studies also find that creative performance improves substantially while walking compared with sitting (Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014). If you’re stuck on a problem, try a short walk to get your ideas moving.

2. Embrace constraints

Paradoxically, limits can boost creativity. Constraints force us to explore unconventional approaches and prioritize essentials. The famous example is Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, written with a highly restricted vocabulary under a bet; constraints can produce memorable, innovative outcomes (Tank, 2019).

3. Relax and reduce stress

Relaxation supports creative thinking by improving attention and preserving neural resources that enable associative thought. Techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, walking meditation, and yoga can lower stress and sharpen focus—both important for creative problem solving (Ma et al., 2017). Because chronic stress can impair memory and neural health, stress management is vital for sustaining creativity.

4. Collaborate

Although the solitary genius is a popular image, collaboration often drives creative breakthroughs. Creative networks—groups of people who critique, inspire, and develop ideas together—can amplify individual talents. Many renowned creators worked within such networks, which helped shape and refine their most original work (Uzzi & Spiro, 2005).

5. Sleep on it

Sleep plays a crucial role in creative problem solving. During REM and non-REM sleep the brain replays experiences and extracts patterns, then integrates them with stored knowledge to form novel connections. Historical and experimental evidence shows that dreaming and sleep-related consolidation can lead to genuine insights (Lewis, Knoblich, & Poe, 2018).

6. Reserve “genius time”

Set aside regular time to pursue passion projects or side ideas without immediate pressure for results. This “genius hour” approach lets curiosity drive exploration, and skills or insights developed in such periods often transfer back to main tasks, fueling innovation (Provenzano, 2015).

+1. Your creative tip

Creativity is personal and context-dependent. Consider what strategies have helped you or others—journaling, sketching, changing routines, cross-training skills—and experiment with them. Sharing your own tip can also inspire others.

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Fostering Creativity in the Classroom: 3 Tips

Supporting creative development early gives students tools they’ll use for life. Here are three classroom practices that encourage creative thinking.

1. Show you value creativity

Make clear that experimentation, curiosity, and iterative learning are prized. Encourage trial and error—celebrate attempts that reveal what does not work as steps toward discovery—so students feel safe taking intellectual risks.

2. Give creativity time

Creativity often requires unstructured time. Consider dedicating regular periods for students to explore projects of their choosing; ample time lets ideas incubate and grow, especially for younger learners (Tornio, 2017).

3. Provide a “Da Vinci” notebook

Give students an empty notebook they can use freely to jot questions, sketches, poems, and ideas. This habit encourages curiosity, documents emerging interests, and often sparks classroom projects and discussions (Davis, 2018).

3 Steps for a More Creative Workplace

Organizations that want innovation can take concrete steps to foster creativity across teams.

1. Break down boundaries

Design workspaces and workflows to increase informal interaction and cross-disciplinary contact. Environments that encourage people to meet, talk, and share work-in-progress tend to generate more novel ideas (Levy, 2017).

2. Allow time for side projects

Allocate time for employees to pursue pet projects or experiments. Programs that grant dedicated creative time can produce valuable new products and services, while signaling that experimentation is a company priority.

3. Encourage experimentation and learning from failure

Foster a culture where small experiments are expected and interpreted as learning opportunities. With the right mindset, even unsuccessful attempts yield insights that guide later success (Forbes Coaches Council, 2017).

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Becoming More Creative in Art and Music: Solitude and Collaboration

Artistic work often requires solitude to concentrate, yet sustained isolation can stifle inspiration. Many artists balance private studio time with regular group contact—peer critiques, shared sessions, and exhibitions—to stay inspired (Horejs, 2020).

Musicians often follow a similar pattern: individual drafting followed by group refinement. Robbie Robertson of The Band described how initial song ideas were brought to the group to be developed together; the band’s chemistry was strongest when members could hear and see one another, which shaped the sound of their acclaimed recordings (Robertson, 2016). For many creators, a tailored mix of solitude and collaboration brings the best results.

The Link Between Night and Creativity

Some people feel most creative at night. Night owls often report the quiet hours support deep focus and unconventional thinking. Research comparing evening and morning types has found higher scores on measures of originality and flexible thinking among nocturnal participants (Giampietro & Cavallera, 2007).

That said, many highly creative early risers exist as well. The key is to discover the schedule—night, morning, or in-between—that best matches your biology and responsibilities, and then structure your most creative tasks accordingly.

17 Exercises To Discover & Unlock Strengths

Use these 17 strength-finding exercises to help people discover their talents and apply them creatively in work and life. Created by experts and based on research.

Resources and Exercises

Practical worksheets can help translate ideas into action. Consider tools that encourage visualization, structured problem solving, and regular writing: visualization exercises to imagine success, career visualization to plan goals, social problem-solving worksheets to generate multiple solutions, and affirmation design tools to build confidence. These resources support the everyday practice of creativity.

A Take-Home Message

Creativity—the ability to bring original, valuable ideas into the world—is a capacity we can all develop. Walking, relaxation, sleep, collaboration, well-designed constraints, and dedicated time for passion projects are effective ways to boost creative thinking. For groups, supportive environments, clear signals that experimentation is welcome, and opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas will increase collective creativity.

Ultimately, cultivating creativity means identifying the combination of habits, spaces, and practices that work for a particular person or team and committing to them consistently.

References

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