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Creative thinking

The Dog Days of Summer … the weather and creativity.

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The term ‘Dog Days’ traditionally refers to a period of hot and humid weather occurring during the summer months of July and August … at least in this neck of the woods.

Now that the weather is getting slightly cooler, I wondered how it might also affect us creatively.

It’s not surprising that warm weather has positive effects on the mind, body, and soul … but does it also affect our creativity?

Studies show that not only is the human brain more mentally fit, but we are also our most creative selves when out in the warmth.

Researchers have found the ideal temperature for human creativity and a positively functioning brain is 72 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 degrees Celsius, which is just about room temperature.

When the temperature drops below the 72-degree sweet spot, people are less open-minded and creative, and their moods and brain functioning declines.

We actually lose some of our potential to be physically and mentally fit and more creative when we are in colder environments.

Researchers outfitted a group of office workers at an insurance company in Orlando, Florida, with portable temperature sensors and loaded their computers with productivity tracking software that measured total time spent typing and typing errors, among other things.

 Measurements were taken every 15 minutes for more than three weeks.

 The findings … higher temperatures (around 77 degrees Fahrenheit or 25 degrees Celsius) were associated with greater productivity than lower temperatures (around 68 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius).

 Warmer workers typed 150% more and made 44% fewer mistakes than their chillier colleagues.

 The so what!! … Warm environments can help spur productivity and creativity hot streaks.

Apparently, Picasso preferred a nice 72 F/22C degree day with a slight, cool breeze!! And so did his ‘long dog of summer’!

https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/1901/picassos-sausage-dog

Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
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Boost creativity with the help of your dog.

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Cooper,Marilyn, and Norbert

The dog on your left (my right) in the picture is our dog Cooper. He is 11 years old.

The other gorgeous Golden in the picture is Norbert. He is 8 years old and is Cooper’s best dog friend.

We recently drove to Stoney Lake to visit Norbert (yup ,this is what you do as dog owners … you drive 2 hours north so your dog can visit his best friend).As we were walking through the fragrant pine forest to the lake, it actually struck me for the first time ever that dogs might help boost our creativity. I mean … is that really even possible?

I did some ‘digging’ and found out it is more than possible, it’s absolutely true. Here’s how!

Owning a dog means lots of walks and adventures.

Generally, we walk Cooper once a day and cover about 2.5 kilometres in total. We used to walk 3 times a day and cover a lot more distance, but now Cooper is an old guy with lots of arthritis!

Walking is great for creativity! According to a recent study creative thinking improves while a person is walking and for a period of time shortly thereafter. The authors of the study found that walking outside in the fresh air helped produce twice as many creative responses compared to sitting down. The creative juices continued to flow even after returning to the office and sitting down, back at your desk. The upshot is that creative output improves as does creative quality.

If you bring your dog in to your pet-friendly office, inevitably you will have to take the time to let your dog outside on a walk. These extra brief moments of activity can help keep the creative juices flowing throughout the day. Taking breaks to play tug-o-war or play ball can help to increase the quality of your work by allowing you to come back to your task with a fresh mindset. Plus, getting out of the office and getting some exercise and fresh air can increase your dopamine and endorphins.

Also, the presence of a dog in an office sparks conversations among employees, increasing creativity and positive outcomes.

Finally, having pets in the office (especially the CEO’s office) makes the environment less formal.

Dogs aren’t just good for creativity, they can help improve productivity too.

When a problem arises, it’s hard to stay trapped in a negative mindset when there’s a cute bundle of fur snoring on the floor next to you.

Research tells us that people who describe their homes as cluttered exhibit greater depression and fatigue, diminished coping skills, and increased difficulty transitioning from work to home compared to people who view their place of residence more positively.

Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

Stuff ??!!

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My father dearly loved and adored George Carlin!!

This routine about STUFF was one of his all-time favourites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

As my husband and I were literally vacuuming the garage floor last weekend … yup … we did that … I started thinking about how organizing our stuff during the pandemic has made us feel so much better!!

Not only better, but more CREATIVE!!

It turns out it’s really a thing!!

Physical surroundings drastically affect our mood, and our creative thinking.

Statistics say that workplace mess reduces our brain activity, and can negatively affect our work.

Being organized plays a crucial role in creative thinking. It literally allows us to better organize our ideas.

What I didn’t realize until it happened, was that the more our space/the garage was organized and decluttered, the more I thought of things I wanted to do!

Making the space around us clutter free, made space in my mind to create!

When you have less organizing to do in your home, the more physical space you have, but it also opens up space in your mind.

Clearing the physical clutter (including vacuuming the garage floor), also cleared the clutter from my mind.

So what about the idea that creative people are messy??

In the process of making something, there can be chaos, for sure! But for creativity to thrive, I believe the surrounding space needs to be organized for ideas to come to fruition.

A dishevelled environment can halt our creative performance, largely by diminishing our well-being.

Research tells us that people who describe their homes as cluttered exhibit greater depression and fatigue, diminished coping skills, and increased difficulty transitioning from work to home compared to people who view their place of residence more positively.

The problem with being stressed out by a messy environment is that the mess tends to remain in place, thereby leading to constant cortisol production!!!

AND, there’s more!!!!

Another consequence of mess-induced stress is weight gain.

According to several sources, people with unkempt homes are 77% more likely to be overweight than those who reside in organized surroundings.

When you declutter your physical environment, you have more mental bandwidth to make better decisions, set priorities, and create space for new creativity, possibilities, and ideas to come to you.

Do you get more creative in a decluttered space? Have you recently vacuumed your garage floor? J Please let me know!! I would love to hear from you!

Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

Around the world in 80 hotel toiletry bottles

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Like many, I have been doing my best not to spend money during the pandemic.

This has led to some very interesting behaviour that is reminiscent of being raised by parents who grew up in the great depression.

I never realized how much their behaviour had an impact on me, until we faced our own version of the depression … COVID-19.

I know I’m not the only one who has a collection of toiletries from various hotels. I’ll even get excited to stay at a specific hotel if I really like the brand of toiletries they use. 

From my travels over the years, I’ve amassed many freezer size Ziploc® bags full of stolen hotel toiletries.

Personal and full disclosure … when travelling with colleagues, we loved to play a game we called ‘Raid the Maid’.

The goal was to hit the housekeeping cart parked outside the room while the staff was inside the room working.

Points would be awarded based on the size of the haul you brought back!!

And, if it was a hotel that had those tiny little rubber ducks for the bath … well it was totally game on! Rubber ducks were worth a sh*t ton of points!

So when the pandemic hit and we all went into lockdown, I decided it was the perfect time to save money by working my way through the prized collection. On the first day of saving money in the shower, I sorted them like a kid returning from Trick or Treating!

When I pull out a new bottle, I try and remember what hotel I got it from. Let me tell you, it’s like travelling around the world every time you inhale the scent!

https://barefootbrainstorming.com/blog/tapping-into-the-olfactory-thought-centre-in-brainstorming/

And to my surprise and delight, there are some well-known brands in that bag of raided treasures … like Fresh, L’Occitane, Bliss, Aveda, and C.O. Bigelow. I rationed those because they are just so delicious!!

I understand that for environmental reasons, most hotels have stopped supplying the tiny toiletries, and have moved to large dispensers.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am a huge environmentalist … but I am now increasingly saddened as I place another empty little hotel-sized bottle in my blue recycling bin! It feels like I might never travel ‘there’ again … particularly now!

Of course, Disney being Disney, has solved the problem of people being disappointed about not being able to bring home the toiletries. You can get your Disney fix at home because they now sell them at the hotel gift shops, and from the shopDisney website. The same goes for the Bliss products used at W Hotels.

Really, what’s the fun in that?

There is no skill or points awarded when you buy the stuff!!

Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

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The brilliant humourist Mark Twain receives credit, but I have been unable to find a solid citation.

The observation has been attributed to several other prominent humourists including: Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Artemus Ward (pseudonym of Charles Farrar Browne), Kin Hubbard (pen name of Frank McKinney Hubbard), and Will Rogers. Yet, it is unlikely then any of them said it. The creator remains anonymous based on current evidence.

It’s all about our tendency to believe that what we think is fact when unfortunately it’s just opinion, and as an opinion it may not be correct. 

Most importantly, when we act based on a belief something is fact and it turns out to not only be opinion but wrong, this is when things can often go spectacularly wrong.

Perspective is everything!

Here is the most perfect example I have ever found!!!

Enjoy The Cookie Thief!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oioZqbGEzTQ

Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

Crisis Crushes Conformity and Fuels Creativity

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I was so inspired when I read FourSight’s recent article Creativity Surge: How to Sustain Your Energy during a Global Crisis https://blogs.foursightonline.com/  that I was inspired to dig a little deeper!

The world is battling a deadly virus, the global economy is in a perilous state, and millions of people are closeted away in lockdown.

So why is this a good time to be thinking about creativity?

In every day, non-pandemic life, we tend to engage in more conforming behavior rather than creating behavior.

During a crisis, however, our survival instincts kick in, and we recognize that past patterns that evolved for one environment are no longer helpful in the face of change.

 A crisis often challenges established practices, think of physical distancing before and during the pandemic.

Given the fact that crisis crushes aspects of conformity, humans naturally shift focus and energy to their innate creating behavior.

Some of humankind’s greatest inventions have emerged from our most trying times.

Think of the philosopher Isaac Newton, who first began to reflect on the notion of gravity while he was quarantining from the Great Plague of London.

Or Archibald McIndoe, who pioneered the development of plastic surgery by treating burned airmen during the Second World War.

Here are 3 tips that I think are super helpful when we consider fueling creativity!

  1. Remember that avoiding failure quashes innovation

Fostering a truly innovative culture means letting go of certain old-fashioned corporate ideals.

Look at the way your business is structured. Does an innovative idea have to be turned into paperwork and signed off by a whole host of people before it can be implemented?

Generally, businesses put these cumbersome practices in place to avoid making mistakes. But, if you’re avoiding failure completely, you’re inevitably quashing innovation too.

That’s why it’s essential that you move to a new set-up where creative employees are able to voice their ideas without fear of reprehension. Your processes may be inhibiting its creativity.

  1. Understand that innovation isn’t a “project”

Innovation is an ongoing process, not a “one-and-done” activity.

Ideas need to have as direct a route as possible to the primary decision-maker.

 If you have to convince the finance heads to release money for an unproven idea, you’ve got a hard battle ahead of you. It’s easier for interesting ideas to happen when there’s a budget for them.

 If your people has the skills to spot opportunities, generate ideas, develop the ideas and do some prototyping – you’ll get far better thinking from them.

  1. Recognize that creativity problems can run deep

Creating the right environment to foster creativity, idea generation and bottom-up improvement requires employees to be engaged and feel safe to fail.

I think we are all seeing evidence of this very real fact – ‘those most likely to survive and thrive economically through, and immediately after, the pandemic, are those ready to embrace their creativity surge’.

Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

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