How to Keep the Creative Juices Flowing After Summer Vacation

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Hopefully you took a summer vacation. Nothing recharges your batteries better and helps you get a new perspective on your life and work. If you did, no doubt you had a moment or two of clarity, especially if you found yourself away from home and in unfamiliar surroundings. Science has confirmed that those “aha!” moments are more likely to occur in new settings since the brain is processing new sets of information, mixing it with established knowledge in a process essential to what we call “creativity”.

Forbes contributor Carmine Gallo recommends several ways that employees and business leaders can provide a more creative work environment.

Schedule a “mini brain vacation” by extending the length of a business trip by a day to see the local (and unfamiliar) sights, or add a vacation day to a three-day weekend in order to get out of town.

Adopt a “Results Only Work Environment” (ROWE) that measure success according to what gets done rather than by how many hours are logged at the office. This frees employees to do their work in novel surroundings, increasing the likelihood of finding creative solutions.

Loosening the travel budget can pay dividends if it exposes employees to new situations, i.e. beyond the walls of an inner-city conference center.

Finally, keep off-site schedules bearable. Inspiration happens when we allow our minds to wander and find new connections. A day out of the office shouldn’t be planned minute-by-minute from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m.

In his Big Think interview, Samsung’s head of strategic marketing David Steel explains how empowering (design) employees is one of the company’s essential business strategies: