How to think Creatively

Creative thinking techniques and tools for success

Tune in if you want creative thinking techniques and tools for success.

If you want to boost your creative thinking to help you solve problems and achieve smart goals, then we probably have the simplest and most effective creative thinking tool!

Creative thinking is an essential skill, whether you are working on a project, pursuing a personal smart goal, or solving a problem. It is about thinking differently and getting outside the box.

The secret to this comes with three key components

  1. Context, a focus or a problem statement. Of course, it could be all three.
  2. Purpose – reason to want to do something about it.
  3. Imagination comes from asking the right questions, and for this, you need context and purpose.

O ideas is one of our most powerful mental models, tools, or techniques, depending on how you want to describe it.

O ideas provide a cognitive shortcut. We’ve taken some of the most commonly asked questions when problem-solving, goal-setting or tackling a project.

The principles are consistent. So to save time and make people more effective and productive, we created o ideas to help.

Creativity is about asking the right questions and freeing your mind to allow it to find solutions, but creative thinking is not about judgment, qualifying and committing. Not yet, at least.

First, open your mind, explore the superhighway of your imagination, and wander through the after of the possible.

We have many critical thinking tools (check the link) to use after, but only after you’ve wandered into the creative sphere ( yes, I made that up), but it is a real place we all have tucked away in our brains.

Downloadable Templates

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Posted On January 6, 2022 By Ricky Muddimer In Creative Thinking, Engagement, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Motivation, Productivity, Video /  

What to do When SMART Goals Don’t Work

Try the Benchmark Method

New Year’s resolutions will be on the minds of lots of people; if that’s the case, if you’re serious, you need to get goal setting.

A lot of the time, New Year’s resolutions focus on feelings and confidence, and SMART goals don’t work for something subjective, not until now, that is. SMART goals are great for goal setting, when you know how to set goals using SMART they’re awesome, but what do you do when the subject of your goal is a feeling, a perception or a judgement, something subjective, well we have the perfect solution with benchmark goal setting.

You can take something that is hard to measure and turn it into something that will work with a SMART goal. SMART goals are essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers.

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Posted On December 30, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Coaching, Goals, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Motivation, Performance Management, Productivity, Video /  

SMART goals; are you doing them right?

Need to define Smart goals? – before you do, are you doing them right? if you want to achieve what you want that is!

Smart goal-setting works, which is probably why no one has managed to reinvent them. Smart goals are the staple diet for team leaders, managers and leaders. Without smart goals, you have no idea what you’re working on, what your people are working on, or what your organisation is working on. Your future is at risk and left to chance.

In this video, Graham walks you through the smart goals process and gives a practical example. We also shared why we think most are getting it wrong, at least the order that is.

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Posted On December 28, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Confidence, Engagement, Goals, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Motivation, Performance Management, Productivity, Video /  

How to Define More Robust Goals

SMART – What each letter really means!

The SMART goals technique is arguably the most well-known of all goal-setting techniques. How to set goals is really important if you want to be more productive, have success, and ultimately achieve your goals.

The acronym S.M.A.R.T. is well used across the world. But knowing what it stands for is only the start, you need to understand the individual components to make it work for you and improve your productivity and effectiveness.

Anyone can set a goal, but if it ain’t specific, you’re saying you don’t care what you achieve or if you achieve it. Denzel Washington said, “Dreams without goals are just dreams”.

So if it’s important to you and you want it, get specific and go for it. In this video, we explore the types of measures and how to make them work for you. SMART goals are essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers. Watch this video to find out.

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Posted On December 2, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Coaching, Goals, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Video /  

How to think different and get unstuck!

We are all subject to the insanity loop from time to time, that feeling when we seem to keep doing the same thing yet expecting a different result.

We get stuck! To get unstuck, we need to change our thinking; in this video, we explore why you get stuck and offer three easy ways to free yourself from Einstein’s insanity loop. Thinking skills are essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers.

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Posted On November 18, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Confidence, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Productivity, Video /  

How to make your self talk work for you!

Learn how to make your self-talk work for you. In this video, I share with you how to change how you think so that you can achieve your goals more easily.

By Self-talk, we mean those inner voices that determine your mood, confidence, emotions and appetite to want to do something – or not. We are often our own harshest critic, yet rarely are we our own best friend.

Ethan Kross talks deeply about how your inner dialogue affects your performance in his book, Chatter. At Thinking Focus, we help people get out of their own way by providing practical tools they can use for themselves; after all, thinking is one of the crucial tools you have in your arsenal for success. Thinking skills are essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers.

So whether you’re focused on personal goals, like losing weight, making more money, or achieving your work goals, this video is a great way to start changing your self-talk and achieving your goals!

Thinking Focus Toolkit


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Posted On November 11, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In High Performing Teams, Metacognition, Mindset, Video /  

How to achieve success in 2025 with a proven process.

Discover the secret to boosting your productivity at work!

Follow these tips, and you’ll be able to get more done in less time and feel more organized and efficient in your daily tasks. Whether you’re a working professional or a student, these tips will help you achieve your goals and meet your deadlines.

So let’s get started! These tips will help you improve your productivity at work! Whether you’re unstructured, find it hard to plan or dive in without thinking it through first, our Actions Model – FoooDo will help you to be more productive and effective more often.

FoooDo has six steps designed to help you get clarity, be more creative and critically evaluate which ideas are worth pursuing as you work to achieve your goals.

Be more successful with FoooDo, the ultimate #coachingmodel that will help you think, plan and execute your goals more robustly. Achieve what you want!

FoooDo is a central component of the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers.

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Posted On May 21, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Confidence, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Goals, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Motivation, Performance Management, Productivity, Video /  

Why do we sometimes step up and other times shy away from opportunities?

Our mindset is vital in whether we are open or closed to opportunities.

In this video, we explore five ownership levels that describe our openness to new opportunities. The shoe salesman story illustrates how two people can see the same opportunity in two very different ways.

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Posted On May 11, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Culture, Engagement, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Motivation, Psychological Safety, Resilience, Video /  

Are you focused on the right activities for your goals.

Use critical thinking tools to ensure you’re focusing on what matters.

Critical thinking follows creative thinking or task analysis; it helps you to prioritise where to spend your time.  They work by eliminating bias, which means you will make more objective decisions rather than relying on your gut or what you like to do.

Whether you are awash with ideas or overloaded with tasks, the ability to critically evaluate where best to spend your time and what will add the most value and make you most productive is an essential skill.

With the Ease versus Impact Critical Thinking Tool, you can ensure you are focused on the highest value activities all the time.

Critical thinking is essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers. This is a free downloadable resource that wiill help you, but don’t keep it to yourself; feel free to use it and share it; you can access it here:

Thinking Focus Toolkit


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Posted On March 24, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Critical Thinking, Decision Making, Goals, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Management, Metacognition, Mindset, Productivity, Video /  

Are poor behaviours holding your organisation back?

Want behaviour change in your company?

At Thinking Focus, we believe teams and business units underperform not by choice but because of self-imposed and organisational constraints.

We help people adopt a growth mindset that unlocks interference and accelerates the adoption of new behaviours, which leads to greater organisational performance.

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Posted On March 11, 2021 By Ricky Muddimer In Change, Culture, High Performing Teams, Leadership, Mindset, Productivity, Video /