Creative sparks for busy teams: 5 ways to make content creation fun again

When was the last time you wrote for fun? Now I don’t mean sitting down to write a novel, or waxing lyrical through poetry (though you do you). But when was the last time you enjoyed the act of writing or looked back at what you wrote and thought that’s so good?

For most people writing has become a job, a task, something to get done as quickly as possible to move onto the next task. Maybe that’s why so many are using AI to write their content because quick = good. 

Injecting the writing process with a jolt of creativity has some unexpected benefits. It’s more enjoyable to the person doing the task, the output is better, it’s more human, it has more emotion and the audience is far more engaged.

What is creativity?

Now I’d never class myself as a creative person. To me that’s someone who can draw or paint or create sculptures. It’s not someone who sits as a computer all day long. Creativity is put on some pedestal as something out of reach for most of us. The truth is, that we’re all creative. 

Whether it’s playing an instrument, cooking, knitting, make up, hair, puzzles, or writing, and so many more. Using our brain in a way that involves some degree of thinking outside the box, blending ideas or ingredients together in different ways is all being creative. 

Increasingly our jobs don’t need creativity. It’s all about process and efficiency, and it’s killing off our creativity. 

We’re heading (I hope) for a creative reawakening. AI works like predictive text on speed. Yes it can string a sentence together but it can’t blend, join and weave together ideas like you can. Right now with a struggling economy and low business confidence, we’re being instructed to go with something that's easy and efficient - and that’s hitting a button to write marketing copy. But give it a year or so and people will start to question whether it’s actually working, whether that copy is impactful and whether efficiency trumps effectiveness.

Making writing fun

I’ve never written a more subjective heading in my life. I’m going to caveat this with a warning - some people will hate writing no matter how much fun you think it is. Just like I loathe maths, they detest writing and nothing will change their mind. 

If there’s someone in your team that feels that way then maybe it’s time to stop trying to change their mind and instead look at the distribution of work (if possible).

When you make writing fun and creative, the output changes. People are happier to put in more time and effort, it feels more natural, it’s more emotional, more effective. Does it take longer? Perhaps, but there’s a quote I love which is “You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou.

I like to think of creativity like a muscle, it needs exercising and then it becomes stronger which makes things easier to do.

Here are my five favourite ways to make creating copy fun again.

Encourage creativity 

Before we even get to writing, find out what creative outlets your team already engages in. Are they budding artists or do they devour books? We want to increase the levels of creativity in general as that will then impact our writing. 

Challenge your team to find 5 creative outlets that already exist in their life. We want to embed creativity in what we do and we want to be inspired by what we enjoy. Whether it’s music, art, cooking, beauty, fashion, comics - the thing doesn’t matter, what matters is they’re embracing creativity and being inspired by what they enjoy.

Add limitations

On the surface this sounds conter-productive. How can you be more productive with more constraints? But adding in parameters means you’re forced to find creative solutions and to think outside your normal way of doing things. 

Challenge your team to work within limits. Can they write a social media post in 100 words or less? Can they avoid a certain word? Can they add in a song reference? It doesn’t matter what the rule is. It’s all about making people think, and write, in a different way. 

Caption this

One picture, different captions. For me, that’s creativity. How can you take one image and make it mean so many different things? From poignant caption to a witty, play on words. 

Challenge your team with a weekly caption competition. There doesn’t have to be a prize besides pride (unless you want one). But a friendly sense of competition, challenging your team to do better, to be more imaginative is a great way to bring fun and creativity back into their writing.

Window of opportunity

We’re all creative at different times. If you try and get me to write a blog after lunch it’s like wading through sinking sand with a 20kg weight strapped to you. But give it to me first thing and I’ll fly through it. Allowing your team to tap into their natural creative cycles instantly makes writing more fun and far easier.

Challenge your team to lay out their peak times for creativity, it might take them some time to work it out, but once they know - and you understand when they’re feeling more creative it makes scheduling work far more enjoyable.

Ban AI

A controversial one I know, but here me out. AI encourages us to be lazy. It stops us exercising that creative muscle. We rely on a machine doing the thinking for us and we become button pressers instead of creative marketers. 

Challenge your team to avoid using AI for content creation. Instead put it on them to think of topics, craft headlines and write those emails. They might not like it, but breaking out of the AI trap - even if only for a week, will help show that they can do that thinking on their own.

When we start thinking about our writing, our word choice, our approach, we instantly become more creative. Play is at the heart of creativity, so to encourage creativity we need to encourage fun. By bringing opportunities to be fun, and even dare I say it, a bit silly, you’ll see creativity spark and the results that will come with that.