Unleashing Your Creativity Under Pressure

No matter what industry you work in, deadlines are inevitable. Unfortunately, we’ve almost all been in a situation where we’ve promised someone that we would come up with an amazing idea or concept, there’s only one problem – the deadline is approaching faster than you can come up with a brilliant idea. Talk about pressure!

Next time this happens to you, remember these helpful tips:

Gather All the Facts
The more you know about the subject at hand, the easier it will be to come up with a creative idea. Take the time to speak with experts on the topic, do your research, and schedule a brainstorming meeting with those involved in the project.

Allow Yourself Time to Play
Now that you’ve gathered the facts, walk away. It is important to let things marinate for a few hours. Take some time relax. Go for a walk, grab a bite to eat, or chat with a friend. Some of the best sparks of creativity happen when you aren’t thinking about the task at hand.

Find Similarities
Try a unique approach to tackling your creative problem. We recommend the following exercise. Write down a bunch of random things on several different pieces of paper. Then, mix all of these ideas up and pick one from a hat. Do your best to come up with 10 similarities between this random thing and your task at hand. You might be surprised at how much two dissimilar things have in common, and can work together.

Forget Perfection
There is no perfect idea. There are good ideas and there are better ideas. Just because you’ve come up with one solution, doesn’t mean that there aren’t more out there. Do yourself the biggest favor of all and remember to cut yourself a break.

For more help generating creative ideas for your business, contact the team at 3Seed.