Every workplace has challenges, from frustrating coworkers to work overloads. One reason such issues keep hanging around is a lack of creative solutions.

“Ideas on how to solve workplace problems rarely pop into your head when you’re on the job,” says John Putzier, author of Get Weird! 101 Innovative Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work. “The reason you don’t get creative problem-solving ideas at work is the distraction level. You’re likely answering phones, going to meetings or completing projects.”

You can learn ways to boost your creativity at work. Mr. Putzier offers some suggestions.

Be prepared

Because you will likely get your most creative problem-solving ideas when you’re not at work, carry around a note card or small notebook all the time, no matter where you are, so you can capture those flashes of wisdom.

According to Mr. Putzier, the three primary barriers to creative thinking are:

  1. Structures and patterns. Most adults live each day the same way. If you think about your morning routine, you do it in the same order every day. “You are in what I call ‘mental cruise control.’ You don’t have to think about what you’re doing,” he explains. “You go to work, do your job and come home on the same route. Then you go through your evening routine, watching your favorite TV show or whatever. It becomes a very numbing existence.”
  2. Judgmentalism. We have so many decisions to make every day that it’s nice to have some already made. “We reach judgments as adults, and we not only hold on to them, we try to justify them by hanging around people who think like we do, and by joining organizations of people we like,” says Mr. Putzier. “We create social structures and patterns that reinforce our judgments in order to be comfortable.”
  3. Resistance to change. The last barrier to creative problem-solving is actually your attempt to protect the first two barriers.Working to overcome these barriers by making small changes to your life every day can open you to new ideas. For example, change the stations on your car radio, get a new hairstyle or read a publication you disagree with.

“In short, start exploring the world outside your comfort zone,” says Mr. Putzier. “That will automatically stimulate your right brain, the creative problem-solving area of your brain, and cause you to be a little more inquisitive, curious, open and more creative.”

Eventually, if you practice injecting change into your life, you’ll become more open to alternative solutions to problems.
Take time to stop and say, “Wait a minute. Is there another solution?” There’s almost always more than one solution to a problem. Often, the best is not the most obvious one.

Take a break

If you hit a wall when trying to solve a problem, stop and come back to it in an hour, or even a few days. You’re more likely to come back with a fresh perspective and the ideas will flow. What’s more, you won’t get sucked into the habit of a past structure.

Pick someone else’s brain

Generally the problems we face at work aren’t new, so solicit a brain to pick besides your own.

Get weird

“‘Get weird’ means to break out of the mundane, the routine. Take some risks and chances,” says Mr. Putzier. “Look at yourself in the mirror each day and ask, ‘What am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? How could I be different? What are my choices? Who can help me?'”

This way, day by day you’ll discover the excitement and satisfaction of becoming a creative problem solver.