Shaking Up Your Routine May Produce Your Best Work

When Dolly Parton was on set for the movie “9 to 5”, she wanted to keep making music but without disturbing those working around her.

So she used her fingernails to “make them sound like a typewriter” (this was in 1980) and produce music in her head. At the end of the day, she’d head for her hotel, pull out her guitar and get the music on tape.

She wrote the movie’s theme song—picking up two Grammys plus an Oscar nod—bit by bit over many days on set.

Here’s the thing: while routines work for a reason, shaking them up from time to time gives you an opportunity to use a different part of your brain—to experiment.

It won’t always produce an award winner, but it might just give you the breakthrough you’ve been searching for.

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