Ways to Boost Your Creativity By Diane Kaern

Introduction• An accomplished sales operations professional, Diane

Kaern holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. Having served as a global sales compensation analytics and reporting manager at Hewlett-Packard Company, Diane Kaern used her creative thinking skills to design a new process that streamlined worldwide reporting.

In recent years, the value of creativity in business has become more recognized, but not everyone has strong creative thinking skills. Fortunately, there are several ways you can improve you creativity. While it may seem counterproductive, limiting yourself can actually improve your creative thinking.

Boost Your Creativity• Leaving things completely open may result in your mind

thinking of far too many possibilities, making it difficult to really develop a single creative thought. By placing limitations on things, you can focus clearly on a single idea and really flesh it out. Additionally, if you are a creative person, forcing some sort of restriction upon yourself may help you do something different from your past work.

Comparing your creative ideas with those of your past or with others’ ideas often holds back any creative thoughts in the future. Recognize that each situation is different and that each creative solution is new and, thus, cannot be effectively compared. Further, staying positive about your ability to solve a problem helps you to do some of your best creative work.