According to research from Stanford researchers, Professor Daniel Schwartz and doctoral graduate Marily Oppezzo, walking boosts creativity.
The study found that the simple act of walking enhanced creativity regardless of whether it was indoors or outdoors.
One of the experiments found for example that a person walking indoors on a treadmill or walking outdoors produced twice as many creative responses than a person sitting down.
The study also found that this impact on creativity lingered after walking and the person sat down.
The findings applied more to the divergent (or early) part of the creative process rather than the convergent part.
How might you and your team apply these findings?
1. You can run a walking meeting or brainstorming session.
2. Perhaps go for a walk before a brainstorming session or exam or presentation.
3. If the group gets stuck then get everyone up and moving around.
4. Walk between meetings.
5. Walk to and from work.
6. Go for a walk at lunchtime and think about an pressing issue, opportunity or challenge.
7. Do a Blitz when you are walking.
8. Blitz with a partner when the both of you are walking.
9. Have you advertising agency, partners or suppliers join with you on trying to solve a problem.
I love this finding.
Through walking you can not only become more creative but fitter and lose weight.
How I used Ideas Blitz App.
I wrote the structure of this blog using the Ideas Blitz app.
a. I typed in the challenge.
b. Presses start.
c. generated 9 potential applications of this research finding.
d. Then enhanced each one of these.
e. Prioritised the points by moving the bubbles around.
f. Saved then emailed it to myself.
The structure for this blog was then finished in literally minutes.
This process could be used for a presentation, essay, assignment or exam.