6 Techniques to Boost Your Creativity

There is often a misconception that creativity is only for “creative people” like artists, writers or musicians and that it is always inherited. But that is so not true. It is a valuable skill for people from all walks of life, and there are many ways to bring out your creative side through various methods. Creativity builds your confidence and communication skills, improves your ability to solve problems, and keeps you curious!

 

  • Work Out Your Creative Muscles!

 

Creativity is like a muscle. You will need to work it out to strengthen it. Meaning, take some time out of your day to unplug from social media, emails, work, and all the chaos just to let your mind wander! Think about different things in the world. Go through your favourite memories, and this might spark some inspiration for you! If it helps, keep a journal and pen down your thoughts. You never know what you might stumble upon! 

It has been proved that the more you use your brain to do something, the stronger the connection between the cells involved become.

 

  • Switch Things up a Little!

 

Try reorganising your room or your day. It does not matter if you think it’s not so significant. Try changing your daily habits, maybe to have a dedicated morning routine. This might help you think differently. 

Change things up on your desk and keep it tidy. A clean and minimal space plays a primary role in sparking your creativity.

 

  • Leave No Stone Unturned!

 

When was the last time you learned something about the space? Have you ever come across the stories of the Bermuda triangle? How does water behave in space? How are black holes possible? Now is the best time to step out of your comfort zone and explore!

Read a book about something that excites you, watch a documentary, visit a museum or dive down the internet rabbit hole and delve into astronomy! 

Try a new creative hobby like nature journaling, playing music, painting, or whatnot! Have a friendly debate with someone. This might present you to a unique perspective! 

Research implies that expanding your knowledge of unfamiliar topics nourishes new ideas and divergent thinking. 

 

 

  • Keep an Eye Out for Inspiration!

 

Always look out for creative ideas or inspiration and make sure you jot them down on the go – in a pocketbook or on your smartphone. To make a note of it, you could write it in words, draw a little doodle or record a piece of audio. Create mind maps or flowcharts; whatever works best for you! Later, when you are away from all the distractions, you can go through these ideas and contemplate on how you can act upon them. Some ideas do not work out, and that is ok. Do not let it make you feel less worthy. 

Most of the time, the problem is not the lack of inspiration or ideas but not observing and recording them.

 

  • Figure Out Your Most Creative Hours!

 

We all indeed have certain times of the day where our creativity is at the peak. To discover this time, regularly pay attention to your thoughts and ideas throughout your day. It could be during the morning with your cup of coffee, in the afternoon after lunch, in the evening during your tea time, or even right before you go to bed. Sometimes, it is also in the midnight! Find this time and schedule it for some daily creative musing.

 

  • Challenge Yourself!

 

Put yourself in challenging positions, brainstorm for ideas and act upon them. Try solving tricky puzzles, arrange an escape room game with your friends! Or simply challenge yourself by setting a time limit to complete a particular task. Chances are you have hit a new creative thought! That is because challenges act as a catalyst to think creatively and come up with alternative ideas or solutions.

 

In short, creativity is something that can be cultivated with the right mindset and practices. It is an important skill to add to your skillset. It makes you a better performer at work and presents you with exciting opportunities. I hope these tips help you fuel your creative thinking process and realise that it is never too late to be creative!

 

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PRODUCTIVITY – THE SECRET YOU’VE BEEN MISSING

Ever thought why sometimes we feel so frazzled, depleted and stressed? Because we don’t manage our work correctly, therefore, our energy. We don’t organize our day. That’s the secret to productivity we have been missing — mapping out our priorities.

  • Prioritize Ruthlessly

Prioritization is directly linked to getting more out of the limited time that you’ve got each day. It can be a blessing to work out everything from productivity to time management to work-life balance.

Not able to prioritize your to-do?

Being productive isn’t about doing more; it is about doing what’s needed by focusing on the tasks in the right way—in other words, prioritizing.

When it comes to prioritizing, everyone has a way to do. Its the very first step whenever you are working over a project — know what your work is. Make a list of things along with the deadlines. When you do this, you will know ahead what is essential and what is not. Hence you’ll be able to divide your work into; today’s task, recurring tasks, and projects.

    • Which Tasks Are Necessary, Urgent, or Both

Necessary means “something that needs instant attention.” Most of us have trouble prioritizing our tasks as per necessity and urgency because it is difficult to distinguish.

You can use the Eisenhower Method of Prioritization, where you take a matrix-based solution to differentiate between urgent and necessary tasks. The four quadrants of the matrix are as follows

  • Necessary & Urgent (Do it now)
  • Necessary & Not Urgent (schedule a time for it)
  • Not Necessary, but Urgent (who can do it)
  • Neither Necessary nor Urgent (Delete it)

When you finish with this labelling, it will help you in decision-making, and you can focus on what matters to you. 

    • Create Your To-Do List

The importance of making a to-do list is to finish every project. To-do list is the best way to organize everything that you have to accomplished for the coming days.

This idea of creating a to-do list might be a common one. But if you don’t do it right, it won’t be helpful. Check whatever you have on your plate and smartly prioritize your tasks. Note it on the list before you plan to do it. This way your mind will remain organized when everything is written on your to-do list—thereby increasing your productivity.

The list can increase your productivity and output by 25% if you are dedicatedly working on it. When you plan your to-do list, your subconscious mind will know what to work on first and what to work later.

How to prioritize?
  • Break down your list based on deadlines
  • Break tasks down to manageable sub-tasks
  • Use labels to prioritize, organize and differentiate tasks.
  • Estimate time to define how much time each task should take
  • Create recurring tasks
  • Track time spent on tasks using timers or manually.

  • Quick Communication

Irrespective to the size of the team, preparing priorities and communicating it to the team can cause misunderstandings, stress, and frustration. But when you are communicating clearly from the beginning until the end of a project, you can avoid troubling emotions.

Staying in the loop with the team will give an excellent chance to share how they’re feeling, what’s challenging them and what’s pulling them down.

  • Time Management

A productive time planner will bring all your data in one place. When you come up with great ideas to put forward, you can prioritize tasks to make sure you get the job done faster.

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Soft Skills that are essential in your resume

In today’s world of opportunities, applying for a job with a neatly formatted resume is the main thing to do. A resume is something that helps the employer to judge the employee even before they meet them. It reflects everything you’ve done to date both professional and educational. If you can make the first impression of what you are in your resume, the chances of getting hired are more significant. Soft skills have a very significant role in the resume.

Soft Skills

Soft Skills

These are the qualities that you gain with experience, and it can’t be taught in a classroom or education. You might think that adding your technical skills, education details, certifications, and previous employment details(if there are any) will be sufficient. But in reality, all the mentioned skills without soft skills wouldn’t be valued. When designing your resume, you must add a separate section for your strengths and achievements right after educational qualifications and technical skills. This section tells what you are as a person and how compatible you are to work with others in a corporate environment.

Let’s see some of the soft skills that should be in your resume.

Communication:

This is the most important skill among all the soft skills that should get a place in your resume. Without this skill, you cannot crack any interview. It’s necessary for almost every industry like Human Resources, Sales, Management etc. Confidence, Clarity, Constructive feedback are some of the terms that you can add under this subsection.

Teamwork:

If you’re applying to a job where you’ll be a part of a large team or handling a large team, then this is a very very important skill in your resume. In industries like sales, marketing, software, management teamwork skill is very essential skill without which there’ll lack flexibility within the team. Listening, coordination, collaboration, negotiation, Conflict Management are some of the terms that you can add under this subsection.

Creativity:

This is one of the important and innovative soft skill if you’re applying for the job. Achieving a task with an innovative idea is a part of creativity. For starters, this skill is most needed in the designing and art industries, but these days every industry is looking for a creative person with innovative ideas. Mind mapping, innovative, imaginative, divergent thinking, insightful are some of the terms that you can add under this subsection.

Work ethics:

Adding this soft skill to your resume convinces the employer that you are dedicated and give work the topmost priority. It talks about our character, as well. Every industry looks for the employee with work ethics. Commitment, professionalism, Time management, Discipline, and initiative are some of the terms you can use in this subsection.

Problem Solving:

Analytical thinking and creativity coming out during the crisis are the main qualities in this skill. Problem-solving skills are necessary for almost every industry. Lateral thinking, Analysis, Observative, Brainstorming are some of the terms that you can use under this subsection.

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Social Media Communication – Explained with Coffee

There are several social media platforms. Each of them caters to a different type of user. When it comes to social media, every business has different opportunities to Utilize. On that account, to find success with your social media strategy, you need a clear understanding of how users communicate on different social media platforms. You can use the same subject matter but make sure you post the content that reflects each social channel’s style of communication. 

  • Facebook

Social Media

Facebook is the largest of all the social media platforms with 1.5 billion users and over 30 million business pages. In today’s generation, almost everyone has got a Facebook account to stay in touch with their friends and family. You can post your feelings and thoughts over here. It’s a 2-way channel that enhances interaction through Like, Share and Comment. The business pages help the business to reach their target audience through different types of advertisement.

  • Instagram

Instagram lets anyone of you become a photographer. It’s a trendy and cool platform that enables you to upload pictures. You can also edit the pictures, enhance its colours or even add filters to the images. It helps the business showcase their products.

  • Twitter

Twitter is known as the journalist of all the social media platforms. You can find real-time news updates literally every second. The character count of a tweet is 140 characters. Hence the best policy for the content posted on Twitter is “Short and Sweet”. Twitter also invented #Hashtag in 2001. Hashtag is a way to group information on the same topic together.

  • LinkedIn

LinkedIn is basically Facebook for professionals. Here professionals create their profiles which basically is like an online resume where you highlight your skills and achievement and call them +Endorsements. It is also a powerful networking tool for professionals, business and aspiring professionals. If you consider yourself in a “Career” set up a LinkedIn profile and start connecting with people.

  • YouTube

Social Media

YouTube is the biggest video-based social media platform. You can stream any kind of video that your business does on YouTube. These videos can also be integrated with your website or share of different social media platforms. Your business has a promo video of the new product then YouTube is the best platform to upload those videos. It has the benefits of SEO too.

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Leadership Skills required to make you a Good Leader

Leadership skills are crucial skills next to time management skill. A good leader can take the organisation to greater heights. To become a great leader, there are a lot of soft skills needed that inspires others to work. 

Leaders become great not because of their power but their ability to empower others.

Listed below are some of the characteristics that’ll make you a great leader

  • Communication 

Communication is one of the crucial skills of a great leader. A team who couldn’t carry out the plans and strategies is of no use. Hence it’s the leader’s responsibility to make sure the team understands and is motivated enough to carry out the projects. They often tend to be excellent listeners. They know to give their views on personal performance in a constructive way rather than a destructive way.

  • Awareness

A strong leader should be aware of the business process. They should be aware of everything happening in their team. If a team isn’t performing well, they have to figure out and address the issue. They should also be aware of how to innovate and change the business over time.

  • Integrity

Honesty is the best policy.

If the leader isn’t honest, you can’t expect the team to be reliable either. The team doesn’t always have to like everything the leader says, but they do appreciate honesty. A good leader must be able to delivery harsh truth diplomatically. All companies seek to hire employees with strong integrity.

 

Leadership Skills

 

  • Problem Solving and Decision Making

A great leader focuses on solving the problem rather than the problem. Problem-solving sometimes requires them to take quick decisions. Hence they have to be skilled at the problem solving and make the right decisions for the greater good. They take responsibility for the issues and creates a solution to bring back the workflow to normal.

  • Relationship building/ Teambuilding

The Business/organisation performs efficiently when the team trusts and works smoothly with each other. A leader’s role is to encourage and maintain a healthy work relationship in the team and the organisation at large. When the employees trust each other, it benefits the company significantly.

We hope the above-mentioned Leadership Skills helped you to evaluate where you stand in your journey of becoming a great leader.

The only difference between ordinary and great is practice.

So keep trying till you become a great leader!

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6 Best Career Skills to learn during this Quarantine

The Career skills you learn during the quarantine will make you more hirable. We all know that this will be over one day, and the world will start spinning again. When this happens, you must be ready for your new job or the promotion that you were waiting for. Quarantine is the best time to get yourself prepared to take advantage of the upcoming opportunities. Here are some life-changing career skills that’ll help you in the near future.

  • Time Management Skill

Time Management is the king of all the skills. Once you learn to master the time, success will follow. It usually takes years to master time, but it takes only a few days to make a routine. Check Tips to improve Time Management for more information.

  • Language

Learning a new language fluently will add massive value to your resume. You don’t necessarily need to have native fluency. But when you visit a different place speaking in the local language is always appreciated. You can check Why Communication Skill is essential ? for more information.

  • Coding

Career Skills

In today’s generation, where technology rules the world, learning coding will be an excellent choice for your career. In case this pandemic has made you think about the transition to a remote job, then coding would help you. Coding is one of those skills which can increase in demand with the coming future. In fact, in many countries, if you check the Skill Shortage list, you’ll find a lot of openings for Web Developers, IT Security professionals, programmers. If you’re someone who is zero in coding, then you can start with basics like HTML, CSS, Ethical Hacking, Python. You can find these courses on Cosmic Skills.

  • Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a particular skill like IT skills, rapidly increasing in demand. Every business/ company, irrespective of the scale requires marketing. What better in the digital world than digital marketing. You can offer your crucial knowledge to improve any business, including your own if you’re an Entrepreneur.

  • Problem Solving and Decision Making

Career Skills

The bottom line for every employer to hire you is to solve a particular problem. There’s a lot of stress when there’s a mismatch with the problem and the solution. In other words, There’s a lot of chaos when the wrong person is hired to based on the qualification. But in the end, it doesn’t matter unless you’re able to solve the given problem and make the right decisions. Hence, problem-solving and decision making is always a valuable skill.

  • Leadership

Career Skills

Leadership is one such skill unlike others will help you in many aspects. This requires a special skill set to master. Leadership skill is often mistaken to be as a management skill. There’s a vast difference. This isn’t easy to find even amongst the management. It requires both self-motivation and motivating others at the same time. 

Hope this motivated you to upgrade your career skills during this quarantine period. Hope you had a great time reading this post. What are you waiting for? Start upgrading!

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Time Management Skills – Effective Tips

“Time and tide wait for none.” We all have heard this quote some time in our life. Everyone’s day has 24 hours. Why do you think some can get most of the things done while some can’t? Time management is one of the most rewarding skills in both your personal and professional life. 

The biggest enemy of time management is Procrastination. The moment you start procrastinating your tasks, you lose control of time.

Time management doesn’t mean squeezing all the tasks into your day. It’s about simplifying by prioritizing your tasks. You don’t have to be some legend to master this time management skill. You just need to follow an essential slogan. Work Smarter, not Harder. Find simple alternatives instead of a complicated solution.

Here are tips to become a master of time management and utilize your time to the fullest.

Time Management

  • Make a plan and stick to it.

You don’t have to be a super-organized person in the world. Plan your day the night before or plan your week on Sundays. Stick to the plan unless there’s a sudden urgent or essential task. Now you’ll know where all your time is getting wasted. Allot 30 minutes to 1 hour to catch up on emails and social media. Frankly, these places eat up all the time. Set time for each task and try to complete it within the set time.Set buffer between tasks so that if in case it takes longer, you don’t have to postpone that task. Slowly this becomes a challenging game than just a habit.

  • Get enough sleep

A human brain and body require a minimum of 7 – 8 hours of sleep to feel fresh and energized. Hence make sure you get enough sleep before you start your day. Sleep deprivation not only causes stress but also tires your brain and body. Don’t underestimate the value of sleep as it disturbs your entire day.

  • Give your day an early start.

Like I already said we all have 24 hours. We can’t increase that, but we surely can wake up early and make our day longer. Utilize this time to exercise or meditate or even pursue your hobby. This will help to calm your mind and feel fresh. This won’t just make your day longer but also creates mental balance.

  • Learn to say NO

You can’t please everyone and still be able to complete your work. At some point, you should learn to say no to the things that don’t interest you. Your objective is to commit to something that you know you have time for. It’s not a must to commit to things when you have a plate full.

  • Spend your mornings on MIT’s

Once you’re done with your routine, start your day with the most important task of the day. There are some reasons why this method is effective. For starters, you’re active during the starting of the day than that of later. As you do the prioritized tasks one by one, you get the feeling of achievement for the rest of your day. It’s better to do these tasks when you still are fresh and active than tired and drained.

  • Turn essential tasks into Habits.

When you have a task to be done regularly, try to make it a habit. So after that, you’ll not feel it to be a task. Eventually, it’ll be manageable and more comfortable to follow. To make any task a habit, start doing the critical job at a specific time of the day for 21 days without any breaks. 

  • Group similar tasks together

For a similar kind of task, you need the same type of effort. When you group these kinds of tasks together, the brain maintains the same flow. There won’t b any kind of reorientation necessary for your mind without switching to something else.

Always try to make all your tedious tasks enjoyable. The goal for time management is that you’ll be stress-free and enjoy your life in a much better way.

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Communication Skills – Why its Essential?

We have seen many people talking about the importance of Communication Skills. Most of them think that speaking in English is communication skill. Unfortunately, they are wrong. English is just a language to communicate. There’s a lot more to What Communication skills are and Why is it so essential.

We have seen many people talking about the importance of Communication Skills. Most of them think that speaking in English is communication skill. Unfortunately, they are wrong. English is just a language to communicate. There’s a lot more to What Communication skills are and Why is it so essential.

What is Communication Skill?

Well, we know the answer to this but just didn’t know if it suits this question. Its simple, Communication Skill is a skill required to express and put forward your thoughts ideas in a way that the second person understands.

Communication often includes two or more persons, where one speaks, and other’s listen and wait for their turn to speak. To be an excellent communicator, you must always know your audience or the person you’re talking to. It is crucial to use audience-appropriate topic and language when you speak. Using high edged vocabulary doesn’t mean you’re an excellent communicator. You can also use simple words to express your ideas.

Ways to Communicate

Communication can be done in two ways

  • Verbal Communication
  • Non-Verbal Communication

Verbal Communication:

Verbal Communication

Verbal communication is when you use a language to express the ideas, thoughts & opinion. This includes Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. So this basically takes place between two persons by written or oral words.

Non-Verbal Communication:

Non verbal communication

Non-verbal communication happens when the two people are communicating face to face. Its the way your body communicates with the opposite person. Facial expressions, gestures, touch, walk; everything that contributes to the way you present yourself is non-verbal communication.

Why’s communication very important?

Importance of Communication Skill

Communication is a life skill. It is you expressing what you think or feel. This is essential for every relationship. Either be it for a job interview or in the schools & colleges or in the workplace, communication is considered to be very crucial. Even with parents, friends, etc., the way you communicate is how you build your relationship. This is because they are looking for someone who could express their ideas are. Without communication skill, it’s difficult to understand the point of view or opinion of a person. No matter how creative or intelligent they are, if they couldn’t express themselves, they are no assert to anyone. Therefore it doesn’t matter in which language you communicate, but make sure you show yourself as much as possible at home, at school, at college. We hope you become an excellent communicator someday!

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Boost your Learning Ability Instantly

The concentration span of the brain varies from person to person. It’s impossible to train your brain to follow some other’s learning ways and expect the same results. At some point in life, we all struggled to try and make learning exciting and fascinating. Some succeeded, some didn’t. There might be ways to boost your learning abilities.

Here are seven tips that’ll boost your learning abilities and help you score excellent results.

  • Prepare your own study notes

Boost Learning Abilities by making your own notes

It might sound frustrating, but, preparing your own notes is one of the best ways to learn. When you make your notes, you actually go through all the points and pick out what you find exciting or highlight just the key points that’ll summarize the whole. These notes help you to revise during the last moments. Use attractive colour pens so that the view gets registered in your brain. You can recall the points through the colours you used.

  • Create a plan that works for you

Planning

You all know when you walk into an exam hall without complete preparation, you get a sick feeling. Well, we all have gone through this feeling one time or the other in our education phase. To avoid this kind of unprepared circumstances, make a plan and stick to it. Everyone needs good results, and everyone’s ready to put the efforts, but the efforts shouldn’t be wasted. Make a plan in such a way that you will achieve maximum results.

  • Take breaks regularly

Boost Learning Abilities by taking Breaks

Breaks help a lot more than what you think. Taking breaks regularly helps your mind refresh and that 5 – 10 minutes will also help your muscles to stretch. Have some water take a walk to feel the fresh air. It just helps your mind to focus and refresh a bit so that you can come back sharper and more precise. Overloading your brain without breaks in between will make your mind all worked up, and you’ll end up forgetting everything you learnt. 

  • Revise everything

Once complete a concept, or you’re back from your break, make sure you go through your notes, key points and highlights just to make sure that you’re perfect with the concept. Now you’ll feel more confident than ever because you remember the chapters and you made sure of it. 

  • Use mnemonics

Boost Learning Abilities with Mnemonics

Mnemonics are words or phrases that’ll help in memory retention and retrieval. For example, the colours in the rainbow in an order can be remembered through VIBGYOR. Similar kind of words or phrases can be used to remember the subtopics easily. 

  • Always have a study partner.

Boost Learning abilities with Study Partner

Having a study partner doesn’t mean physically, a phone call away study partner will do the trick too. You should always have a go-to person when you require help with some concepts. Studying alone might be annoying. So have a study partner to explain all the topics you learnt to each other, which will help you to understand better. It’s healthy to have a different point of view to draw a conclusion.

  • Relate to your surroundings

Everything in the universe is connected to everything else. 

Whenever you learn something new, try to relate that idea with a real-time example. This way, you will have a much better understanding of how this concept will help you in real-life implementation. If its something you do in your day to day life, you can actually remember it and never forget.

Few things to keep in mind to boost your learning during some exams is that you need to get enough sleep, stay hydrated, and eat healthy food all these will reflect on your mind during the exam. All the best! Happy Learning!

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