It doesn’t matter if you work a creatively taxing job or your employment solely revolves around left-brained work. Everyone needs personalised soft creative habits to help them stay productive as they try to get things done each day.

(This is a guest post by Katie Brenneman. Thank you Katie for writing this for me.)

The term “soft creative habit” refers to easy, simple, yet meaningful activities that can engage your mind and unleash your creativity. Investing in a soft creative habit can be a great way to unwind and relax. It can also double as the perfect way to get those creative juices (and by extension, that productivity) rolling.

Here are some suggestions for different ways to engage in soft creative habits, even if you’re the least creatively inclined person you know.

Paint, Draw, and Doodle

Creating illustrations is an iconic hobby. It gives your mind a chance to disconnect from responsibilities, slow down, and indulge in some truly right-brained activity. It’s also a wonderful way to release stress and sharpen your memory.

The act of creating a recognisable and artistic image on canvas, paper, or other medium requires unique brain skills. This can wake up your mind and help you think outside of the box.

The best part is, you don’t need to be a professionally trained artist to take advantage of this soft creativity option. If you have well-developed artistic skills, by all means, paint a mural.

If you don’t, though, you can still draw a picture or even take up doodling. In fact, while often seen as a children’s activity, something as simple as doodling can actually do wonders for adults as well. Consider flipping the script when it comes to behaviour modelling and take a lesson from the younger generation. Embrace something like free doodling to sharpen your focus and unleash that productive creativity.

The only thing we won’t recommend here is colouring, as following pre-defined lines doesn’t lend itself to sparking creativity.

Channel Your Inner Chef

It’s no secret that cooking is creative. The act of taking a variety of foods, spices, and other ingredients and turning them into a cohesive and delicious entree or dessert has always been a human specialty.

It’s also a fun and relatable habit that anyone can participate in. If you have no obvious ability to be creative, cooking can be a particularly attractive entry point to get onto the creative scene. It comes with recipes and is structured enough to give someone who is creatively lacking a blueprint for the activity.

Once you get comfortable with how each ingredient works, you can begin to wander from the script, branching out and making your own cooking creations in the process. The best part is, there’s no end to the number of ways that cooking can make you more productive at work, starting with the simple fact that it ignites those creative thoughts as you bring each dish together.

Find a Creative App

There are many ways that technology can aid in creative endeavours. When it comes to soft creativity, one of the easiest ways is by downloading any number of word-play or logic apps.

For instance, Wordscapes is a popular app that pushes people to think outside of the box to create words from a limited number of letters. Wordle is another word game that has recently become very popular. Many similar games focus on logic and problem solving rather than wordplay.

Solving logic puzzles and playing word games are both common ways to not just keep your mind thinking. They can also help you develop valuable soft skills for the workplace, too.

Embrace Freewriting

If you’re more attracted to the written word than other artistic endeavours, you may want to try a form of creative writing called freewriting. Developed in 1973, this form of writing is similar to journaling with one key difference: you can’t stop.

With freewriting, the magic really takes off when you don’t let yourself stop writing what’s in your mind, no matter what you’re thinking at the moment. The creative effect of this flowing activity is tremendous, and it’s often been compared to things like brainstorming at work.

While brainstorming has been criticised for being excessive and chaotic in a work setting, though, freewriting in your spare time is a great use of this kind of unfettered activity. It can both free up your creativity and help you come up with new ideas that may have never otherwise reached the surface.

Cultivating Productive Soft Creativity

At this point, most companies will openly recognise the need for creativity at work. While the understanding is there, though, that doesn’t mean the creativity will automatically follow.

On the contrary, employers and employees alike must strive to embrace creativity in the workplace. This starts with employers setting the stage and encouraging creative pursuits.

This shows employees that creativity (and its profitable results) aren’t just understood. They’re actively encouraged. This, in turn, empowers employees to feel that they can think outside of the box and change their workplaces for the better in the process.

However, from there, it’s up to employees to cultivate their own inner creativity and channel it into productive results. Embracing soft creative habits is an excellent way to do this.

Whether it’s through doodling, painting, cooking, an app, or anything else, if you find fun ways to create regularly, it can lead to less stress, greater inspiration, and more productivity in your daily life.

Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specialising in lifestyle, mental health, education, and fitness-related content. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie. To connect with Katie, you can follow her on Twitter.

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