BUILD YOUR CREATIVE BRAIN

We’re learning so much about the neuroscience of creativity. Here’s a quick, practical model of how it works in your brain — and two toolkits for developing your creativity, no matter where you’re at.

Have a pen and paper handy to work through the prompts, or download the worksheet below.

What is creativity?

First things first — a quick definition. I think about creativity as the act of bringing things into being. And that means we’re all creating, all the time — even if you don’t feel ‘creative’ at all.

Small things. Big things. Objects. Relationships. Experiences. Ideas. It doesn’t matter. Anytime you’re bringing into being something that doesn’t yet exist, you are creating.

List five things you’re bringing into being in your life right now.

How does creativity work in the brain?

Creativity involves three large neural networks:

• The default mode network (imaginative brain) — comes online when your mind is idle. Responsible for spontaneous thought, intuition, and your sense of purpose and identity.

• The executive control network (critical brain) — fires up when you're focused on a complex task. Holds your working memory and drives analysis and decision-making.

• The salience network — decides what's important and manages the switch back and forth between the other two.

Usually, your imaginative and critical brains work separately — they're anti-correlated, meaning activation in one corresponds to deactivation in the other. But creative thinking involves increased communication between the two.

That's the gold. Not imagination or critical thinking, but both, working together.

While we all have and use both sides of our creative brain, most of us lean habitually one way or the other. So before we move on, consider: Which side of your creative brain do you lean on more — your imaginative brain, or your critical brain? Does it change in different circumstances?

Two toolkits

Strengthening your creativity starts with developing the parts of your creative brain that get less habitual use, and then building the pathway between them by engaging in the creative process.

Toolkit 1: Strengthening your imaginative brain

If you’re like me — an overworked critical brain that needed to get its imagination back online — start here.

Let it switch on. Your imagination needs idle, unfocused time to come online — no email, no podcast, no scrolling. Notice your go-to distraction habit, and build small pockets of true downtime into your day.

Move your body. If your wandering mind drifts into rumination, introduce a low-stakes physical task — walking, doodling, cooking, cleaning. Easy movement gives your imagination somewhere to go, so your mind can journey rather than spiral. You can also gently direct it as you go: Where could I take this thought next? What came before it? What colours, sounds or ideas does it bring up?

Feed it well. Your imagination draws on what you feed it. A varied, high-quality diet of stories, art, music, nature and ideas makes for a richer imagination than another episode of your favourite procedural crime drama (speaking from close, personal experience).

These activities are especially useful when you're grappling with a complex task. Our best ideas rarely arrive when we're staring straight at a problem. They show up in our peripheral vision, in the shower, on a walk. When you're stuck, deliberately turning your attention elsewhere gives your imagination room to move.

Toolkit 2: Strengthening your critical brain

If you're a natural dreamer who struggles to bring structure, focus or follow-through to your ideas, start here.

Train focus. It's horrible, but simple really does work. Limit your exposure to highly-processed short-form content online, and build a small, daily mindfulness practice — even five minutes of single-point focus on your breathing or a simple task, like eating breakfast, builds the attentional muscle your executive control network relies on.

Build out the pause. Between stimulus and response there's a gap, and that gap is where deliberate, critical thinking lives. Structured reflection trains you to notice and make use of that gap. Pick a reflection prompt you enjoy using, like “what do I see/feel/notice/think?”, “what am I learning?”, “what’s in / out of my control here?”, and start using it each day.

Move your body, too. Where Toolkit 1 uses movement to anchor a wandering mind, here it's about the power of exercise, aerobic exercise especially. There's solid and growing evidence linking regular exercise to improved executive function, working memory and cognitive flexibility — so do what you need to do to get and stay active.

Pick one practice from whichever toolkit you need, and try it for a week.

And head over to The Creative Process Field Guide and Start Now: Run a Tiny Creative Experiment to start building the pathways between your critical mind and your imagination.

How I’m using the toolkits

Here are three things I’m currently doing to strengthen both my imaginative and critical brain:

• Watching less TV. TV is my favourite vice. I could watch TV for days, so I have a note on my wall that says "Too much TV = Bad News. Read a book. Meditate.";

• Developing a mindfulness practice called mental noting and naming, where I sit, notice and name the flavour of thought I’m having: planning, worrying, judging, remembering etc. Excellent for focus and reducing anxiety.

• Some kind of exercise, every day.

Download the pdf worksheet and take it offline and into your life.