We're always told to “think outside the box,” but how exactly do we do that? And how do we develop the ability to confront problems in ways that are different from those we usually follow? And how can we cultivate the capacity to view the world from an angle other than our own?
Thinking outside the box begins before we are “trapped,” before we face a unique situation and start dealing with it in a familiar and controlled way.
11 Ways to Think Out of the Box
Here are 11 ways to enhance your creative thinking skills. Make an effort to push your thinking beyond its limits occasionally. The talents you improve may be helpful the next time you encounter a situation that “everyone knows” how to solve in the usual ways.
1. Study another field
You may learn a lot about your field by studying another field, so read a trade journal in a different field than yours or buy some books to learn how to get things done in other fields.
You may find that many of the problems people face in other fields are similar to what you face, but they have improved totally different ways of dealing with them. You may also find new connections between your field and new fields, which may be the basis for creative partnerships in the future.
2. Learn about other religions
Religions are how humans organize and understand their relationships, not only their spiritual relationships but also their relationships with each other. Organizing these relationships may teach you about how people relate to each other and the world around them.
3. Take a course to learn something new
Learning a new topic will not only teach you a new set of facts and figures, but it will also teach you a new way to understand and look at aspects of your daily life, society, or the natural world in which you live. This will help you expand both the way you look at problems and the range of possible solutions you can reach.
4. Read an unfamiliar kind of novel
Reading is one of the greatest mental stimuli, but it is easy to get bored while practicing it, so try to read something you have not touched before. For example, if you are used to reading literary novels, try to read a detective novel or a science fiction novel.
If you read a lot of detective novels, try to read a science fiction novel. Thus, pay attention to the story and the specific problems the author has to deal with. For instance: How did the fiction writer dispel your skepticism about traveling back in time and draw you their tale?
Try to relate these issues to the issues you face in your industry, for example: How can the marketing team address customers' hesitation to talk about the new featured product?
5. Write a poem
Although problem-solving depends heavily on the logical centers in our brain, poetry accurately connects the left hemisphere of the brain responsible for logical thinking with the right hemisphere responsible for creative processes (although this division is not entirely correct).
Although it may seem foolish, try writing a poem about the problem you are trying to solve. Your poem should not necessarily propose a solution. The idea is to shift your thinking from the logical centers in the brain to the most creative parts so that you can think about the problem creatively and not only rationally.
6. Draw a picture
Drawing pictures is one of the creative processes that stimulate the creative centers in the brain. Drawing a picture may help reduce the control of logical centers when working to solve a matter, as the poem does. In addition, visualizing the problem engages other patterns of thinking that we do not usually use, which provides you with another creative impulse.
7. Turn things upside down
You can see patterns that would not have otherwise shown up by flipping something over, literally and figuratively, and reimagining it.
The brain has a set of pattern-formulating habits that often obscure other, more subtle patterns at work. Changing the direction of things may obscure habitual or obvious patterns and lead to the emergence of others. For example, you may wonder what the problem will look like if the least important outcome is the most important and how you will try to solve it next.
8. Do the opposite
Just like turning things upside down, working backwards breaks the brain's natural concept of causality, and this is the basis for reverse planning, for example, when you set a goal and then think about the steps necessary to reach it.
9. Ask a child for advice
Apart from the idea that children are creative by nature before they are “destroyed” by society, children think and talk without abiding by the rules, and this can sometimes be useful, so ask a child how to solve a problem, and if you do not find a child to ask, think for yourself about how to reformulate the problem so that any child can understand it, the idea is not to do what the child says necessarily, but to push your thinking into an unconventional path.
10. Work with some randomness
If you have seen a video of Jackson Pollock's drawings, you have seen a brilliant painter working by adding some randomness to his drawings. Pollock controls his brushes and tools to capture the stray droplets and paint stains that make up his work.
As a result, incorporating errors into your projects, developing strategies that allow random input, and working under chaotic contradictions may help going beyond everyday thought patterns to more creative ones.
11. Take a shower
There is a strange psychological correlation between bathing and creativity, perhaps because your mind usually thinks about other things while bathing or because warm water helps you feel relaxed. It's a mystery anyway, but many people live this experience.
So, when your current response to some circumstances doesn't work, have a shower. Something really cool may come to mind.
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