Creativity Exercises

The only way to rebuild a flabby muscle is to keep exercising it until it grows stronger. Below is a selection of exercises to have fun with. Try them as often as you can - and watch out, that creative muscle may begin bulging when you least expect it!

Some Ideas for Building up the Creative Muscle

· Say what you like about an idea before expressing any

concerns you have

· Move your watch or wallet to a new place for a month

· Count up to 100 in 2s and 3s at the same time. i.e 2/ 3, 4/ 6, 6/ 9, etc or up by 2s and back by 3s

· Imagine and develop a conversation between a fish and the

fishing bait, a bee and a flower, a racket and a ball

· Come up with playful but appropriate responses to all questions you are asked today

· Take a common object (pencil, newspaper, watch) and examine it in detail using all your senses

· Identify all the geometric shapes that you can see from where you are

· Use your non-dominant hand to eat, brush your teeth, dial phone calls, etc.

· Read the newspaper in a different order from usual

· Recall the events of yesterday and replay them across your mental TV screen

· Take risks for a day. Risk doing something even when you’re tempted not to

· Examine a one-frame cartoon intently for about a minute and then draw it from memory

· Open a dictionary at random. Pick a new word to learn and use it today

· Look at an issue or opportunity from three completely different points of view

· Practise writing your name in a variety of different scripts and sizes

· Work out how old you are in days, weeks and months; then do dog years (x 7)!

· Make a list of 3-5 things you could stop doing in order to simplify your life

· With your non-dominant hand write two or three sentences without worrying about correctness

· With eyes closed, recall and visualise the tastes of yesterday’s meals

· Pick any two things at random and imagine some sort of new product that could result if they were

combined

· Spend today thoughtfully examining the back and underside of things that are familiar to you

· Close your eyes for a few minutes and try to hear all the sounds going on around you

· Take apart a common appliance (like a stapler, mouse or pen) to see how it works

· Take something common like a newspaper, loo roll, kitchen utensil, glass, paper clip and ask yourself

“What else could this be used for?” Push yourself up to 25 or more ideas. Look at the object from a variety of different perspectives. How would it be used in a classroom or at a sports event? What would the foreman on a building site do with it? How about a politician or a fashion model? Can you use it in the garden? What if it were bigger or smaller? And so on….

"The human mind, once stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimension” Oliver Wendell Holmes

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