Thinking outside the box helps to find a way out of a difficult situation and optimize familiar processes. To develop it, you need to activate your imagination.
Prepare the soil
The way you think is influenced by the reality around you. If you have creative, interesting, talented, inquisitive people in your social circle, then you will most likely be able to develop outside the box thinking in yourself. When among your friends and acquaintances there are predominantly down-to-earth, narrow-minded personalities, you need to find another company if you want to work on your own thinking.
It is also important what information you absorb. If you spend time on the Internet on entertainment or gaming sites, watch various reality shows and endless TV series, it is not surprising that you are faced with the question of how to learn to think outside the box. This way of spending leisure time leads to personality degradation.
Change your lifestyle. Read quality literature. Stop your choice on the works of world classics. There are some methods of thinking outside the box that can be learned from detective stories, but remember that such books must be written by reputable, recognized authors. Pulp fiction can only spoil the whole thing.
If you like to play, choose not shooters, but logic tasks. Develop your ability to think. Then you connect imagination to the intellect and achieve your goal. You can do inspiring creativity. Draw, compose music or poetry, try to write an interesting story.
Find custom solutions
To find a non-standard solution to a problem, you need to drop the usual ways of action and activate your imagination. Brainstorm. Take a piece of paper and write down all the options that come to mind on it. Don't worry about what you are writing. Your goal at this stage is not to determine the viability of a particular method of solving the problem, but to sketch out as many options as possible. Then you can comprehend each item on the resulting list and leave the most acceptable paths.
In order to direct your own thoughts in a non-standard direction, sometimes it is worth going from the opposite. For example, you have a problem and you can't solve it in the usual way. Think about how events can develop if everything is not done as usual, but vice versa. Sometimes this method works, and people find interesting solutions for difficult situations.
Connect your creativity to complex, serious things. Not only will you surprise everyone, but you may also be able to find the best course of action. The main thing is not to take anything for an axiom. Do not be afraid to change everything and offer an alternative to the old methods.