How to find your creative spark in your research?
What is Creativity in research?
Being creative in the way you approach your research can be an excellent tool to develop innovative ideas and approaches to your work. Creative research can apply and be used by anyone from academic work at university to businesses researching the next big idea.
First, we must address what it means to be creative. Traditionally, we associate creativity with professions such as artists and designers. While this is true and they are inherently creative careers, we can all benefit from a creative in our mindset. Try thinking of the most creative person you know, what qualities and attributes do they have which make them creative? You might say words such as, open-minded, curious, imaginative, and playful. These are just a few words that come to mind in regards to creative attributes. Creativity does not come naturally to everyone, but that does not lock you out of creative thinking. Creativity and research go hand in hand its how we achieve innovation. This may result in original or novel work, or even be combining existing research in a new and novel way.
Why is it important to adopt a creative mindset in your research?
Fundamentally this is what research demands, it requires you to think and develop an original output. The ability to think creatively can help you solve problems, overcome deadends and develop further research questions. The ability to open your mind to new ideas can broaden your view and help you overcome problems. Likewise, it can also help inspire those around you it doesn’t have to be an isolated activity!
What are the biggest barriers to creativity?
Next, let’s break down what the biggest barriers are to thinking creativity? In a research environment, we can often be scared of taking risks for fear of judgment of being wrong by our peers. This can prevent us from putting new and original ideas out there instead we might stick to already well-established ideas and approaches. Innovation requires us to take confidence in the risks we take, often this can be about trusting our gut instincts.
Another barrier to creativity is time. When we are met with hard deadlines and a lack of time to get the work done, we fall into the same patterns. You can overcome this by allocating time and space in your schedule to be creative. This doesn’t have to be much time, sometimes purely putting a set time in your calendar where you can think freely will give you the space and freedom you need to get creative. It can also help to make this time unrelated to your current project as it gives you space and freedom which might lead to unexpected ideas.
Exercises to help creativity:
Free-writing - this is a common method to stimulate new ideas. Free-writing involves writing a stream of continuousness this can be whatever comes into your head at the moment. You can make this a timed task giving yourself 2-5 minutes to just write whatever comes into your head, you might be surprised by the sub-conscious ideas you unlock. If this is too open for you, try writing yourself a few prompts these can be related to your work or more random.
Reframe your problem - this is a useful technique if you struggling to overcome a particular problem. This process involves summarising whatever your particular problem is in a small paragraph. You then repeat this 4-5 times each time you must phrase the problem in a different way. You might find this easy at first, but once you get to the 3rd or 4th attempt it can become quite difficult. This can be an effective way of getting you to think about your problem from a different perspective which might lead to surprising solutions.
Give yourself restrictions - this might sound counterintuitive as we often see creativity as an unlimited flow of ideas. However, when you approach creativity without limits this can often be a barrier as we become daunted by the possible scope. Instead, try setting boundaries to think it can help structure your thinking. Check out the video bellow to see how constraints can actually facilitate creativity.
We hope you found these tips helpful to set you on a path to think more creatively about your research. You might find out a blog post on ‘books to help you get out of a creative rut’ a useful read next. To stay up to date with all things Hotel Elephant follow us on Instagram and Facebook.