Be Good At Coming Up With Ideas

I was talking to a client today about how ideas are at the heart of his business and advising him what he needs to do to ensure he continues generating good ideas. And it reminded of what I said in this video (one from the archives!). It says it all, click and play:

Staying Fresh

I blogged yesterday about the importance of not being a workaholic when you are sweating hard in your job. Not only does that benefit your lifestyle it also benefits your business and your productivity.

Because if you’re looking for innovative ideas, solutions and strategies you need to stay fresh. Freshness is part of my professional DNA: I offer my clients a fresh perspective in helping them exploit their market potential. So I have to stay fresh myself, I can’t get stuck in a rut. I need to dip in and out of projects, assignments and working practices to ensure I stay stimulated and inspired and continue to be good at ideas.

It’s like Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi said to me on a rooftop in Paris last year – ‘inspiration out is a result of inspiration in’ so you need to keep on getting inspired yourself if you are going to inspire others. And it’s very unlikely that you’ll do that sitting at your desk or in your office, so you need to get out.

Today I’m off to the South of France for a couple of days. With an agenda, an empty Moleskine and an environment where I know I can generate good ideas, it’s my annual ‘awayday’, an investment in my personal development. My way of staying fresh.

So try implementing some initiatives to ensure you stay fresh. You don’t have to go to the South of France, try what currency works for you. Have a personal brainstorm in a coffee shop, work from home one morning or just break the routine. It can make a huge difference to your success and productivity.

Some people STILL don’t get it! ‘Work’ is a mindset, not a place you go.

So I was in my neighbourhood coffee shop this morning and I bumped into a friend. ‘Not working today?’ he asked.

I told him I was very much working. But he didn’t get it. But where’s your office, how can you be working having an espresso, he asked. ‘I AM my office’ I told him.

Because work is not about walking into an office, sitting behind a desk anymore. It’s about finding whatever currency suits you, what makes you productive, what delivers RESULTS. Time and location are less important.

We must ditch this culture of productivity being measured by how long we sit in an office and instead recognise that you can work anywhere, that you might have the best – most valuable – ideas in the shower or on the train, and that there is a correlation between getting out of the office and staying fresh, stimulated, motivated and productive.

So start getting OUT of the office….