ot creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper, markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice about it, she started playing with the

For the life of me, I could never remember if creative types or analytical types were left brain or right brain.

Then one day, years ago, I found a cartoon that showed two people at a party, a woman and a man. The woman is facing the viewer and asks the man, "I can't remember. Are accountants left brain or right brain?" The man's back is to the viewer. And his head above his ears veers sharply to the left.

I'm a little of both, analytical and creative. I can pretty much turn one on or off at will, like I'm turning on a faucet. Sometimes, though, I need to get into the "other mode" more quickly than usual, and I need some tricks to get there. For me, this usually happens when I need to get creative quickly.

I have a colleague who is mostly creative, but she is often alled upon in her work to think more analytically. She has some tricks to help her get there as well.

A few years ago, I read a great story that highlighted how our brains work and how putting it through certain types of "exercise" will help us produce more work output. A woman wrote an article about her work as a marketing person. She had to pump out a lot of creative ideas one after the other. But just like writers get writer's block, she got creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper, markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice about it, she started playing with the

ight brain?" The man's back is to the viewer. And his head above his ears veers sharply to the left.

I'm a little of both, analytical and creative. I can pretty much turn one on or off at will, like I'm turning on a faucet. Sometimes, though, I need to get into the "other mode" more quickly than usual, and I need some tricks to get there. For me, this usually happens when I need to get creative quickly.

I have a colleague who is mostly creative, but she is often alled upon in her work to think more analytically. She has some tricks to help her get there as well.

A few years ago, I read a great story that highlighted how our brains work and how putting it through certain types of "exercise" will help us produce more work output. A woman wrote an article about her work as a marketing person. She had to pump out a lot of creative ideas one after the other. But just like writers get writer's block, she got creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper, markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice about it, she started playing with the

I need some tricks to get there. For me, this usually happens when I need to get creative quickly.

I have a colleague who is mostly creative, but she is often alled upon in her work to think more analytically. She has some tricks to help her get there as well.

A few years ago, I read a great story that highlighted how our brains work and how putting it through certain types of "exercise" will help us produce more work output. A woman wrote an article about her work as a marketing person. She had to pump out a lot of creative ideas one after the other. But just like writers get writer's block, she got creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper, markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice about it, she started playing with the

ighlighted how our brains work and how putting it through certain types of "exercise" will help us produce more work output. A woman wrote an article about her work as a marketing person. She had to pump out a lot of creative ideas one after the other. But just like writers get writer's block, she got creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper, markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice about it, she started playing with the

ot creative block in her work.

She worked from home a few days each week. One day, after her kids left for school, she noticed that her daughter had left art supplies on the kitchen table. She found paper, markers, crayons, glitter, and glue. Without thinking twice about it, she started playing with the paper, glue, and glitter, making all kinds of creative pictures and shapes. After doing this for about 30 minutes, she went to her office to work.

Can you guess what happened? She was ultra-productive that day! She could hardly believe how much work she got done and how well it turned out. Recalling her creativity session earlier that morning, she decided to do something creative at the beginning of every work day for about 30 minutes. Over time, she found this to be a key to her success and for pumping out many good productive ideas and projects.

I was so intrigued by this story that now I keep art supplies near my writing projects at home. Before starting to write for whatever book or project I'm working on, I draw with color pencils on a drawing pad. It gets my creative juices flowing.

My creative colleague who needs to tap into her analytical side will count tiles. (Different, yes, but it works for her.) When we discussed this in a group, I suggested doing Sudoku puzzles to exercise the left brain.

As you can guess, I'm not of the management mindset that says doing these types of activities during the work day is a waste of time or goofing off. On the contrary, I believe creative or analytical exercises tha