Entrepreneurs have to constantly think outside of the box in order to stay on top of their game.  If you are starting a new business then there is a good chance that you are a solo practitioner.  Until you generate some business and are able to hire dedicated staff, you have to wear many different hats, including the creative hat.  If you are like me, you probably have your strengths and weaknesses.  You know that no one can possibly be good at everything.  My experience with entrepreneurs like you have been that you do not sit still and you are never satisfied with simply accepting your weakness.  If a particular weakness is deemed critical to overcome, you will do what you have to augment it or correct it if at all possible.

Entrepreneurs have to constantly think outside of the box in order to stay on top of their game.  If you are starting a new business then there is a good chance that you are a solo practitioner.  Until you generate some business and are able to hire dedicated staff, you have to wear many different hats, including the creative hat.  If you are like me, you probably have your strengths and weaknesses.  You know that no one can possibly be good at everything.  My experience with entrepreneurs like you have been that you do not sit still and you are never satisfied with simply accepting your weakness.  If a particular weakness is deemed critical to overcome, you will do what you have to augment it or correct it if at all possible.

One of my many weaknesses is being creative.  I'm pretty good at  learning from and applying other people's creative ideas to my own unique situations.  Coming up with my own creative idea however has and will always be a challenge for me.  So, to help me in this area, I try to do certain things, exercises if you will, that I believe will help me become more creative. 

One such exercise is taking different routes in my daily commute to my office.  I have about 15 blocks to walk from my train to my office in the city.  Since I am a creature of habit, I tend to walk in the exact same route day in and day out.  I do the same thing when I drive.  To counter this, sometimes vary my route.  I might walk along the Fifth Avenue one day and then along the Sixth Avenue another day for example.  My rationale for doing this is two fold.  First, it would keep me from getting into the habit of staying inside the box.  The second is that it would stimulate my visual senses in different ways and trigger my creativity some how.  Do I know that variations in visual stimulation triggers creativity for a fact?  No.  I realize that perhaps there are better ways to do creativity exercises and I'm open to them.  What I do know is that this approach does not cost me any additional effort and if nothing, I'm enjoying the walk more.  As I walk along the different paths, I notice new things that I had not noticed before.  For example, I had long forgotten that there is a sizable "fashion button" district on the Avenue of the Americas between 35th and 40th Street until I started to walk in that direction.  They sell buttons of all kinds there.

The point that I want to share is that you as an entrepreneur have to stay on top of your game in order to build a successful company.  You are also one of the busiest people that I know of for all the reasons starting a new business keeps you busy.  You have to be smart about where and how you spend your time, even on little things such as commute to and from your office.  Varying your normal routine from time to time, if nothing else, will help you get in the habit of thinking out of the box.  Who knows?  You might even meet new potential clients.

What smart ways do you spend your time to improve your entrepreneurial skills?