Paul & Peter H. Reynolds' 17 Tips for Recharging Your Creativity

Here are 17 tried-and-true tips for recharging your creativity. We hope you'll enjoy trying some of these today!

Tip #1. Relax. Make some tea.

Tip #2. Articulate your mission. Write it down. Share it. Review it.

Tip #3. Take time to ponder.Where are you going? Or, a better question: Where do you WANT to be going?

Tip #4. Be playful!

Tip #5. Remember to take care of the spirit. (Both student & teacher!) "Find your soul, and make it whole." No "crushed spirits" - no "lost souls"!

More tips after the jump!

Tip #6. Imagine your classroom as a studio, as a research center, as a publishing house.

Tip #7. Step off the path in your teaching. Allow the same for your students in their learning.

Tip #8. Celebrate the blank page! Use programs that allow the user to supply the content or buy a blank journal! Whichever it is... dive in! Doodle. Jot. Ramble. Let it out! (Link to wonderful blank page)

Tip #9. Listen, talk, connect. Believe in the power of the 6-minute conversation.

Tip #10. Find your twin! Share yourself and your dreams with a very close friend. Someone who shares and supports your vision.

Tip #11. Try left field. When looking for solutions, reduce the pressure of coming up with the best idea by allowing yourself to come up with the "worst" idea. Build from there! The "bad" ideas can turn out to be the best because they're the ones everyone else has overlooked.

Tip #12. Share the drive. Like any long road trip, share the wheel. You don't always have to know where an activity is going. Just enjoy the ride. Allow yourself to be surprised. Students are especially engaged when they see you are too!

Tip #13. Novelty. Shake things up. Make it new. It can be as simple as turning off the lights or playing a modern piece of music to introduce Shakespeare. Research supports the idea that novelty is a long-term memory booster.

Tip #14. Search for personal meaning. Provide context and essence before you launch into the details. Connect with a learner's interests, dreams, and unique skills.

Tip #15. Encourage strategies for personal achievement. Allow for multiple approaches to a project. Provide time for students to vision their own futures and explore what they'll need to make it real.

Tip #16. Prove your groove! "Eat your own cookin'!" Model it. Show your students your own work, your examples, your enthusiasm!

Tip #17. Love what you do. Do what you love. Love, love, love, love your kids. It's a gift they'll carry with them for the rest of their lives. Fuel for the journey.