Creative Productivity Hacks for New Entrepreneurs & Emerging Leaders

After decades of being underhyped, the value of creativity is finally getting its time to shine. Hoorah!

Studies show that after employees took a creativity-focused vacation, they were more productive upon their return to work. What does this research mean for you as a new entrepreneur?

Creativity is well-known to spark innovation and inspiration. Wherever your creativity flows, you can find more meaning in what you're doing. But it's not always easy to get those creative juices flowing.

Here are a few creativity hacks to help you out in one of my favourite departments.

🅿️ Have A "Parking Lot" Of Creative Ideas For Your Business

Ideas for my business come to me all the time. Creative ideas are often not on a schedule. They can hit you anytime, anywhere.

As an entrepreneur, you need somewhere to "park" your ideas until you're ready to move them forward in your business.

An idea parking system keeps you focused and on task, so you can create more consistently. This system's function is to capture your ideas, helpful links, or screenshots.

I use Asana to keep my ideas and projects in one place. This tool easily helps you to capture random ideas and thoughts you may want to reflect on later.

Plus, it syncs across all your devices, so you have easy access to your "brilliant" ideas.

If you're more of a paper and pen / marker person, use some big flip chart paper for your office and get creative! This old-school style of brain dumping can be more suitable for certain projects.

🖼️ Align Your Creativity With Your Values

Once you've got a place set up to capture your ideas, set time aside to go through it at least once a month. Don't let your list get too long and overwhelming.

You can categorize your ideas and resources, like I have, into "Ideas for my business," "Creative resources," "Watch / listen," or whatever feels best for you.

As I review the list, I start to prioritize the ideas and / or delete ideas that, upon reflection, aren’t good timing or don’t align with Ripple Effect Leadership’s mission, vision, and core values.

It'd be easy to get scatterbrained about which ideas are relevant to our business. So it's important to always know the mission, vision, and core values of your business in order to make rewarding decisions and move ideas forward.

📧 Declutter Your Email, Workspace, And Environment

Decluttering your inbox gives your creative juices space to flow without friction. It only takes a few clicks to create a new folder or label. From there, you can start sorting your emails accordingly.

Click here for five inbox management tricks you can implement TODAY for a cleaner inbox. Or, become an email management connoisseur with my Own Your Inbox Training Program.

In addition to a clean inbox, decluttering your space — your home office, file folders, or computer folders — will clear your mind and stimulate creativity.

Once a week, or daily if you can, reset your desk space so you can start the next day organized and focused.

⏰ Get Creative On Breaks

One amazing thing about your creative muscles is that you can never lose them, and the more you use them, the stronger they grow!

Exercise your creative muscles when you're on a break by doodling, colouring, free writing, or using building blocks. There are tons of fun ways to creatively "work" on break, without putting in real work.

🪴 Surround Yourself With Colour And Life

A colourful workspace is a more creative workspace.

Being in a monotone work environment can make you feel bored or trapped. Instead, try surrounding yourself with more colour — in any way you can — to vitalize your thinking and relieve stress.

And add more plants to see as much as a 15% increase in your creativity!

👩🏾‍🤝‍👩🏽 Build Your Creative Team

As creative entrepreneurs, our minds can quickly jump from one idea to another. Having simple systems in a creative environment helps to manage our workload, ideas, and processes.

Somewhat ironically, prioritizing creativity also enhances structure, and can help us think and work more effectively — especially when building out our dream business and a virtual team.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed this blog post and I'll see you soon with another one!

Janic 💜

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