Spring Fever and its Effect On Creatives

Creativity is all about change and adaptation. You are continuously changing the way you think and how you perceive your world, challenging cultural norms and traditional models and so on and so forth. When the season shifts to spring, instinctively all living beings get stir crazy for growth and progression. At Amalgam, we are too facing the impact of seasonal renewal and are finding a balance between our need to be active and creative in our natural environment as well as our work environment.

A recent article in The Economist shows the correlation between creativity and living abroad, which I found incredibly logical. We are limited to what we "know" is true and creativity thus becomes a cyclical process. Similar input, similar output. I prefer to view it as a complex root system, reaching further and further out into the world for creative nourishment.

The excerpt below provides a good description of this concept:

"Venturing beyond your geographic comfort zone invigorates your creative spirit. When you go somewhere you've never been before, your brain becomes alive, and you become more acutely aware of your surroundings...Travel serves up a continually changing kaleidoscope of colors, textures, smells and tastes that heighten all of your senses and compel you to think and react in new ways… Travel jolts you out of your normal habits and gives you a renewed sense of excitement about the world that can refresh your creative wellspring.

Perhaps more than any other tool, travel feeds your creative core and strengthens your intelligences. Each time you observe an unusual custom, hear a foreign language, listen to strange music, or walk an unfamiliar path, you inject your mind with data that build your intelligences."
-Aha! 10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas by Jordan Ayan

While that is something to keep in mind for the future, we are still here. In our offices. Watching the sun rise in the east and fall in the west. So my recommendation is to travel as much as you can from your desk, work outside whenever possible, and if you have a few minutes of extra time, take it! Wrap it up in your hands and lasso it around something you find intriguing, then wrangle it in and take pride in what you've created with it. (Bear with me on the cheese factor.) Then it all begins to feel less like work and more like you.

What are your remedies for the fever?