4 Simple Strategies to Boost Your Creativity and Be More Productive

We all want to be productive. Checking boxes, crossing items off our lists—is there anything more satisfying? We tend to think of productivity as a measure of quantity. The more stuff we get done, the more productive we feel.

But sometimes, being productive is more about substance than volume. In other words, the struggle isn’t getting more things done but bringing a single big, hairy, messy problem or question to resolution. Sometimes the brand of productivity we’re seeking isn’t about efficiency, but about finding creative ways to reach a finish line.

If you’re struggling right now to produce something that’s been hanging over your head, then allow me to offer some of my favorite strategies for busting through this type of productivity barrier.

Try slow-motion multitasking

We live in an era of distraction. We’re overscheduled, over-alerted by apps, and overwhelmed with to-do’s. And the common wisdom of the day is to stop multitasking. Multi-tasking, they tell us, is detrimental to our attention and focus. It makes us less productive—the opposite of what we're after. We’re told to focus on one thing at a time and do it well.

And in the context of most of what’s on your to-do list, that advice remains sound. Don’t, for example, try to compose an email while you’re also on that conference call … and possibly cooking dinner.  

One exception to this rule is when you need a boost of creativity to bring something to completion. This is where slow-motion multitasking can come in handy.

Sometimes an intentional shift in attention can reinvigorate your idea-factory.

Think about a moment in which you have several projects in progress at once. Journalist and economist Timothy Douglas Harford suggests that moving intentionally from one project to another and back again allows us to take an idea from one context and move it to another, creating Eureka moments and pushing us toward a finish line.

This is slow-motion multitasking. It differs from traditional multi-tasking in that it’s not done out of desperation or overwhelm, but rather with intention to cross-pollinate ideas between pieces of work.

Struggling to get that resume done? Take a break. Go grab that coffee with the friend you’ve been meaning to reconnect with. Then dive back into the resume. Maybe something uttered over coffee will inspire a creative bullet or two on that resume.

Sometimes that intentional shift in attention can reinvigorate...

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