What's the best way to come up with new ideas?
This is a popular cliché, but personally, I never really got used to this fatalistic attitude, so I spent the last few years figuring out what you can do for yourself, about your own creativity I have evaluated hundreds of studies on this topic, have pilgrimaged to research laboratories, have discussed with cognitive psychologists and brain researchers, participated in experiments in self-experimentation to find out for themselves what works and what does not.
If I had to choose a favorite from all the tips and strategies that came out of it, it would be this: you have to shock your brain. What I mean by that? At least 90 percent of our daily routine is routine, and that lulls our brains. In order to see again with a fresh view of the world, we have to put our brains in situations where it ends with its Latin. We have to mentally upset it. The shock stimulates the brain to rethink, beyond old conventions.
An example: My research trip took me to the Virtual Reality Laboratory of the University of Nijmegen. There you get a pair of data glasses upside down and are kidnapped into a virtual world. It consists of a simulated cafeteria in which the researchers have overridden the laws of physics? for example, a bottle that is knocked over does not fall to the ground but rises into the air. Now, the following has emerged: Test persons who have been wandering around in such a bizarre cafeteria for a while, then perform better in creativity tests. Your thinking has become measurably more flexible.
Many other studies confirm this "shock principle"?
One of my favorite examples is the topic of foreign experience. In a foreign country (Japan!) You just need to go out the door, and you'll be confronted with the unusual at every turn. In my opinion, it is no coincidence that people who have lived abroad for a longer time score significantly better in various creativity tests.
Another example: Studies show that employees who maintain contacts outside their own workgroup or department often have the best ideas. Taking a look into other departments is like a miniature journey abroad: you meet unfamiliar thoughts and approaches, which in turn stir up and inspire your own thinking. My first tip for new ideas: Shake your brain awake. Take a different route to work, try the newly opened, totally exotic restaurant (or even better: a new recipe for your own cooking), open a book that you would not otherwise read, and above all: Let yourself be to people who do not quite tick like you. "
