Here are some tips to unlock your creativity and your best ideas:

• You need more “me” time.
• Get away from your normal routine.
• Go for a long walk, exercise more
• Take an art (woodworking, sculpture, gardening) class
• Put yourself around people who are high performers.

Henry Ford once said he didn’t want executives who had to work all the time. He insisted that those who were always in a flurry of activity at their desks were not being the most productive. He wanted people who would clear their desks, prop their feet up and dream some fresh dreams. His philosophy was that only he who has the luxury of time can originate a creative thought.

Wow! When’s the last time your manager or board told you to quit working and do more dreaming? Unfortunately, our culture glamorizes being under time pressure. Having too much to do with too little time is a badge of “success.” Or is it?

The Apostle Paul took long walks between cities, using the time to think and talk. Even when shipwrecked, instead of calling in a helicopter to get him to his next gig, he simply used the unexpected time to create with his mind.

Andrew Carnegie would go into an empty room for hours at a time, not allowing any interruptions, as he was “sitting for ideas.”

Thomas Edison would go down to the water’s edge each morning, throw out his line – with no bait – and then watch the bobber for an hour until his thinking was ready for the day.

Chris Gandy, my friend at Cause and Effective, tells me he does his best thinking when tending to his sheep!

If you are feeling stuck, your solution may not be in doing more, but in taking a break from the “busyness” of life. Want to be more productive — try doing less. Go “sit” somewhere for a while!”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau

About the Author: Patrick McFadden is Cause and Effective’s Marketing Advisor and is the author of the  Indispensable Marketing Blog. You can also follow him on Twitter.