The tech world is evolving really fast and the tech space is getting crowded with the increase in diversification of young talents, everyone wants to be on top of their game and make the best out of the industry. This also makes the competition rate increase on a daily basis. This reality is enough to put pressure on a creative, it can either serve as a catalyst for healthy competition or as a counter incentive for breakout.
A tech creative is seen as the master of all and most times because of their work environment and the results from different innovations. We can imagine what goes on in the head of a creative. How much input that has to go into producing a solution.
But as a tech creative, it’s easy to get worn out or blank out even with the multiple resources at your disposal. Maintaining a continuous productive work style becomes a hurdle in which you must scale through. And for a starter in the techbiz it can become more draining than more creative.
CREATIVITY AS A DRIVE FOR PRODUCTIVITY.
Creativity is a major ingredient for productivity as it has three approaches to its enhancement: innovative thinking, design thinking and experimentation. It allows brainstorming and thinking outside the box about existing problems and providing potential solutions through activities like brainstorming sessions and ideations. Without this creative vision, checklists, action plans and road maps typically associated with productivity are meaningless. Creativity embraces the potential for failure that comes with experimentation.
IS CREATIVITY INNATE?
Some people believe that it’s impossible to sustain creativity and only some are born as creatives. This is just a myth about creativity. Creativity can be inborn but that doesn’t mean it is limited to some specific people. If you think less of yourself as a creative then maybe you haven’t found your creative spark yet. Creativity spark is an enabler to sustain creativity, some people have found their creativity spark to be in a quiet and serene environment, so while they explore new places and some are even in the oddest places like in the toilet or at the market. It’s that crazy. Before you consider yourself as uncreative or less creative there are ways and techniques to maintain productivity and creativity as a tech creative, there are 10 ways which we’ve outlined to bring ease to your tech journey. Get your notepad and pen so you do not miss out on these points.
10 WAYS TO ENHANCE PRODUCTIVITY AND CREATIVITY IN TECH
1. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
Our world has evolved from the analog days to the present digital age. This purely shows that some people had to change their perspective about the normal way of doing things to a more specific and interesting way to do it. Such is the change in physical and online learning, now you don’t need to go out to a specific environment to learn(even though it can be necessary) but learning has been made available for those who can’t afford the cost of moving from a city to another or a country to another. Finding new ways of doing things rather than simply drawing on previous experience and solutions is key.
2. DEVELOP A CREATIVE PROCESS
Like I earlier mentioned, the creative spark necessary in your creative process, you have to understand when and how you get your spark. Some have a special time of the day when they just tend to so something creative, is it at the early hours of the day, or at noon or at the midnight? Identify it and do more during that time and see the results you will get. You get to engage your brain and so some brainstorming and it can either be done alone or through collective thinking.
3. RESEARCH
When looking for solutions, it is always a good idea to have a background and see whether our idea has been carried out before and whether it could help us with our current issue. In the course of research, we tend to get more exposure which gives us a million ways to provide a solution or solutions as the case may be.
4. DEBATE
Don’t limit your creative process to yourself alone, allow others to help you see things from another perspective, remember that whatever solution you are providing won’t be used by you alone so discussing in a group or among friends about the ideas generated, voting, checking them to see how productive your solution is.
5. KEEP RECORDS
According to research, record keeping helps to measure the extent of growth. In your creative process, you need to keep records of the ideas you have generated. Many times, we discard some ideas because we think they don’t have enough potential yet. But if you write them down and keep them for later there’s a possibility you see them from another perspective and recreate the idea using another approach. Not all ideas are stupid even the ones that looks stupid just need to be acted on. Remember how popcorn was invented.
6. IDEA MANIPULATION
We talked about revisiting ideas you have documented and the idea manipulation technique makes sense since it allows us to recycle, be that by combining or modifying, an idea that had not previously come up. To manipulate ideas there is a tool often used called SCAMPER and acronym for;
S. Substitute; Ideas, places, user, proceedings.
C. Combine. Can two processes gather together to foster a new solution?
A. Adapt. Changing the context, time, people.
M. Modify. Does changing some things in your idea improve it?
P. Put to other uses? Eliminate or reduce to the minimum.
R. Rearrange or Reverse.
7. AVOID THE URGE FOR PERFECTION
Innovative ideas are not created at first glance, two wrongs make one right. Making mistakes will allow you to understand the problem and to adapt the solution better. Remember: “Creativity embraces the potential for failure that comes with experimentation”. If you are a perfectionist then you’ll be limiting yourself if you don’t want to make mistakes. Mistakes are not an end but a pointer to the solution ahead.
8. CHANGE YOUR MINDSET
This is more of an habit than a technique to create ideas. It consists on making new changes, establishing new habits and disciplines outside your comfort zone, learning from past mistakes, taking advantage of your bad memory. To have a sustainable creative process, you don’t only nave to position yourself in an environment that facilitates it but have a positive attitude towards it.
9. JUDGE YOUR WORK ON THE BASIS OF VALUE
Value delivery can never be over emphasized, because if what you are giving out isn’t of any value then the result can be so discouraging that it affects your creative process, you don’t want to continue and struggle to keep up with your competitors. It’s not enough to create, think about the value delivery and its relevance.
10. HAVE AN EXECUTION PLAN
Creativity doesn’t start and end in your head, you must have a sense of direction and an outcome you envision. Without all these put in place creativity can become an unending journey of discovery that ultimately amounts to nothing. The outcome motivates you to do more and do big things. After all, success is measured by what is delivered and whether it’s timely.
The tech industry has a lot of possibilities for creatives ready to resolve problems and it isn’t about the fastest way out or the easiest solution available but it is about to create a sustainable, valuable and innovative solution to these problems. And to be innovative is to be creative, innovation is an activity that captures the future into the present. With these ways, you can maximize your creative prowess and become the best you can be.
