Being creative is not easy. Ideas sometimes come thick and fast, at other times they dry up to a trickle. Knowing why this is can be tricky to diagnose and fix, and it’s something everyone in a creative field deals with from time to time. Even Earnest Hemmingway suffered with terrible writer’s block.

However, by learning a few tricks and building them into ongoing habits, it’s completely possible to nurture and build your creativity. Let’s look at how.

Write Everything Down

Have you ever found that you tend to get your best ideas when you’re in the shower or when you’re falling asleep? It’s easy to think you’ll remember and come back to the idea, but often these sparks of creativity go forgotten.

That’s why it’s so important to write every idea down – no matter how small and no matter what time it is. Doing this is a gateway to further ideas until the ideas coalesce into a whole and, before you know it, you’ve got a killer idea all worked out.

Keep a small notebook on you at all times- when you’re out of the house, when you’re going to sleep, wherever you are. Write down those ideas and you’ll soon have a repository of creative inspirations to build from.

Clear Your Mind

One of the biggest blocks to creativity is thinking too much about being creative. Good ideas aren’t forced, they come when we least expect them. This is why, as we talked about above, they tend to come when your mind is free to wander as it wants.

If you’re struggling for creativity, leave your environment and take a stroll. It doesn’t have to be a huge hike – a 15-minute walk around the neighborhood will do the trick. The key is to remove yourself from where you feel frustrated and simply let your mind go where it wants to go. You’ll find that this is a great technique for dispelling a block and getting your mind into the creative zone.

Experiment

If you have a prescribed technique or pattern for coming up with ideas, sometimes the best thing to do is disregard it and do something new.

Our brains are fickle things and will soon adapt and tire of the same processes, leading to frustrating droughts of creativity. Think about reenergizing your brain’s capacity for creativity by giving it something new to do. This might take the form of mind-maps over prescriptive bullet-point lists, or even using a technique like word association to get the synapses firing.

The key is to exploit your brain’s thirst for new experiences and you’ll find the rewards are new ideas and a boost in creativity.