Thinking outside the box (also thinking out of the box or thinking beyond the box) is a metaphor that means to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel or creative thinking; and understanding your position in relation to any particular situation in a way you’d never thought of before.
We’re told to “think outside the box” all the time, but how exactly do we do that? How do we develop the ability to confront problems in ways other than the ways we normally confront problems?
Thinking outside the box starts well before we’re “boxed in” – that is, well before we confront a unique situation and start forcing it into a familiar “box” that we already know how to deal with. Or at least think we know how to deal with.
Here are 10 ways to beef up your out-of-the-box thinking skills. Make an effort to push your thinking up to and beyond its limit every now and again –the talents you develop may come in handy anytime.
1. Study another industry.
I’ve learned as much about teaching from learning about marketing as I have from studying pedagogy – maybe more. Pick up a trade magazine in an industry other than your own, or grab a few books and learn about how things are done in other industries. You might find that many of the problems people in other industries face are similar to the problems in your own, but that they’ve developed really quite different ways of dealing with them. Or you might well find new linkages between your own industry and the new one, linkages that might well be the basis of innovative partnerships in the future.
2. Learn about another religion.
Religions are the way that humans organize and understand their relationships not only with the supernatural or divine but with each other. Learning about how such relations are structured can teach you a lot about how people relate to each other and the world around them. Starting to see the reason in another religion can also help you develop mental flexibility – when you really look at all the different ways people comprehend the same mysteries, and the fact that they generally manage to survive regardless of what they believe, you start to see the limitations of whatever dogma or doxy you follow, a revelation that will transfer quite a bit into the non-religious parts of your life.
3. Read a novel in an unfamiliar genre.
Reading is one of the great mental stimulators in our society, but it’s easy to get into a rut. Try reading something you’d never have touched otherwise – if you read literary fiction, try a mystery or science fiction novel; if you read a lot of hard-boiled detective novels, try a romance; and so on. Pay attention not only to the story but to the particular problems the author has to deal with. For instance, how does the fantasy author bypass your normal skepticism about magic and pull you into their story? Try to connect those problems to problems you face in your own field. For example, how might your marketing team overcome your audiences normal reticence about a new “miracle” product?
4. Write a poem.
While most problem-solving leans heavily on our brain’s logical centers, poetry neatly bridges our more rational left-brain though processes and our more creative right-brain processes. Though it may feel foolish (and getting comfortable with feeling foolish might be another way to think outside the box), try writing a poem about the problem you’re working on. Your poem doesn’t necessarily have to propose a solution –the idea is to shift your thinking away from your brain’s logic centers and into a more creative part of the brain, where it can be mulled over in a non-rational way. Remember, nobody has to ever see your poem…
5. Draw a picture.
Drawing a picture is even more right-brained, and can help break your logical left-brain’s hold on a problem the same way a poem can. Also, visualizing a problem engages other modes of thinking that we don’t normally use, bringing you another creative boost.
6. Turn it upside down.
Turning something upside-down, whether physically by flipping a piece of paper around or metaphorically by re-imagining it can help you see patterns that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent. For example, you might ask what a problem would look like if the least important outcome were the most important, and how you’d then try to solve it.
7. Work backwards.
Just like turning a thing upside down, working backwards breaks the brain’s normal conception of causality. For example, where you start with a goal and think back through the steps needed to reach it until you get to where you are right now.
8. Ask a child for advice.
Children think and speak with an ignorance of convention that is often helpful. Ask a child how they might tackle a problem, or if you don’t have a child around think about how you might reformulate a problem so that a child
could understand it if one was available.

-the idea isn’t to do what the child says, necessarily, but to jog your own thinking into a more unconventional path.
9. Inviting Randomness
Embracing mistakes and incorporating them into your projects, developing strategies that allow for random input, working amid chaotic juxtapositions of sound and form – all of these can help to move beyond everyday patterns of thinking into the sublime.
10. Take a shower.
There’s some kind of weird psychic link between
showering and creativity. Who knows why? Maybe it’s because your mind is on other things, maybe it’s because you’re naked, maybe it’s the warm water relaxing you – it’s a mystery. But a lot of people swear by it. So maybe when the status quo response to some circumstance just isn’t working, try taking a shower and see if something remarkable doesn’t occur to you!
Do you have strategies for thinking differently? Share your tips with us in the comments.
Culled from lifehack.org/articles and edited by me.

Noted

smoke weed. aswear you will think outside the room.

Baba419:
smoke weed. aswear you will think outside the room.

funny...
But u cant do that on the job

Order your post babe and I may be tempted to read it.


Anyway, on the topic, some people just naturally are that way, they think in the opposite direction.

Not necessarily skewed, but just thinking on that path where the crowd will not dare to thread, and there a few such people.

Nice post OP, its educational and informative

@Three7Ty9, just like any skill this can be developed even thought there are others that naturally have it
@Maximus17 thanks

Read Read and Read!. No prune your reading to your area of interest and you will soon turn a living encyclopedia.
Taking a shower is a magic. been doing that.