This week will be fairly simple: spend fifteen minutes a day stretching. Why stretching? Regular exercise, like stretching, can boost your creativity.

I suggest starting your day off with stretching rather than doing it another time of day. Stretching in the morning will help you wake up, loosen up, and increase your body’s blood circulation. Two routines that are a good starting point are Mike Cotty’s 15 Minute Stretching Routine and for a little more advanced stretching Beginner Morning Yoga Sequence for Greatist.

If those don’t work for you there are a multitude of options online. Find one that suits you and stick with it for at least one week.

Challenge: Create a Routine

I want to share some information that I hope will help you have overall more creative days by allowing you to be more productive. Two important steps to being more productive and freeing up time for creativity are setting up a morning and evening routine. You may already have one or both but if not, I highly recommend it. To help you get started, take some time to listen to this podcast to help you with your morning routine. Then read this to help you with your evening routine and have a more productive day in general. While you’re planning these routines, make sure you’re getting enough sleep, it’s critical to your productivity.

As you go through these exercises, there will be some (like stretching) that you may want to introduce into your daily morning or evening routine. Try them for the week. If you find them beneficial, continue with them on a regular basis. Your routines should be unique to you and may need tweaking over time. Find a good routine to start with and work from there.