5 Exercises for Your Next Commute

Some call it a tiny digital detox, others call it avoiding boredom. Either way, it's something to do in a lull.

Here are the exercises, I'll explain what's what below.

The Big 5:

1. Find an object on your left. Find an object on your right. Think of what they might have in common. Bonus points if you get to or past 10. My favourite example of two unrelated things picked at random to compare is dead person and plant.
   

2. Pick a job (eg. dancer) and an unrelated field (eg. vehicle manufacturing). What are 3 or more ways that this job can fit into this field? (Tip: It helps to deconstruct the job: a dancer can dance in car commercials sure, but a dancer is more than dancing. It's charisma, physical strength, etc. Deconstructing the initial concept is always your friend.)
   

3. Pick an object. Think of as many unconventional uses for it as you can. You've probably heard of this exercise with a paperclip, but give other objects a go! Bonus points if you manage to get to or past 30.
   

4. What are 5 or more ways I can accomplish a mundane thing I have to do today? (Eg. getting to work, obtaining lunch, making sure my kids get to school, etc) If you're wondering whether these ways have to be entirely realistic, the answer is yes...to a degree. Catapulting your kids to school is a stretch but sort of counts, magically transporting them via abracadabra generally does not.
   

5. What small new thing can I learn today? A language is a big, vague thing. A phrase is doable. Learning "what's on this street" (even if the answer is "more houses," you now know what the houses look like) also counts, as does "what's the 7th word on the 7th page of this user manual." The more you practice coming up with small things to learn, the more you'll develop your curiosity. Bonus points if you actually go and learn it at some point that day.

The purpose of these exercises is to help you reach a point where you can scan your surroundings and just draw inspiration from whatever's there. Any time there's a lineup, a longish commute, the internet goes down, or whatever other life circumstance has you in a position to think a bit, consider running through these, even if you can't come up with every recommended amount of responses each time.

A lot of creativity really isn't so much about coming up with a completely new thing as it is having a completely new take on something that exists and building on that. To be able to do that quickly, you need to be ever curious, see how things connect, and be able to fuse together the concepts you know in unusual ways. This is exactly what these exercises aim at developing. With practice, obviously. You'll hear me say this a lot in this blog, but quantity before quality.

Let me know how it goes.