Training, education, facilitating, developing, teaching… whatever your preferred terminology they all have one thing in common, and that is that they all require a fair degree of creativity if they are going to be done well.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like the hardest thing in the world to get creative!  It requires us to give ourselves time, space to think and to let ideas evolve and develop.  Day-to-day, there just doesn’t seem to be time to do that, there is always so many other things demanding our attention that it becomes very easy to be task focused.

However, luckily being creative is much like a muscle.  The more you do it, the easier and stronger it becomes.  So, to help you get your creative hat back on, try one of these fab tricks:

1. Do a doodle – don’t think about it too much.  Just grab  pen and a blank piece of paper and see what you draw for a few moments.  Let you mind wander and see what ideas you come up with.

2. Get Moving – if you are struggling to think of how you can deliver a key learning point effectively, take a break. Get up and go for a brisk walk, get some fresh air, move your body.  All of these things will give you a break from thinking about the problem and when you come back to it, you’ll come back with the fresh pair of eyes.

3.  Set yourself some limitations – what would you do if you couldn’t use Power point, or a particular piece of content has to be delivered in 20mins, or if you had to use a particular delivery method?  Sometimes having a limitation can help us find a more creative solution.

4.  Get your filing done – doing a mundane task like filing, which require little thought can help you see a problem from a different angle.  If you are working on something that doesn’t require much brain power, your mind is free to think about other things and explore other ideas – you might find you get an “Ah-ha!” moment.

5. Tip the Bucket – sometimes a good old brainstorm is just the trick to get your creative juices flowing.  Just make sure you write down everything that comes to mind, don’t dismiss any ideas in the storming process, just write them down!  You never know where you will find an idea which with a little bit of polish can turn into a gem!

What are your favourite tricks to getting into a creative groove?  Share them in the comments below.