Creativity is the WFH casualty no one is talking about. Here’s how to stay inspired while working remotely.

Creativity is the WFH casualty no one is talking about. Here’s how to stay inspired while working remotely.

You know the feeling. It's already afternoon and your goal to make headway on your work to-do list is slipping out of reach. In the office, you could be inspired by chatting with a colleague or charting things out on the conference room whiteboard. But now it's just you, facing a creativity desert.

We hear a lot about the challenges of sustaining productivity in the WFH context. But the deeper, underlying issue has gone unaddressed: You can't have productivity without creativity. 

Without access to the activities and people we've traditionally sought inspiration from “” whether colleagues or concerts, travel or theatre, dance or Degas “” our creative wells are drying up, which has enormous consequences in the workplace.  

Why creativity is another WFH casualty  

In the before-times, our odds of encountering a new idea were far greater. When our worlds extended beyond the four walls of our homes, picking up pebbles of inspiration was a natural, almost unconscious process. While waiting for my coffee I'd overhear the barista gush about a new podcast, I'd pass fresh graffiti en route to the office, then I'd run into a colleague and we'd talk shop before parting ways at the boardroom. Pebbles everywhere; and every so often