You have to learn to become more creative first. I don't know what you want to think outside of the box about, but I suggest to just analyze whatever your trying to get more creative with. Think of every aspect possible even if you think something sounds weird, chances are if nothing else it will amuse somebody. I would just start to realize what everyone automatically thinks or says and to do anything to do or think something else. You might weird someone out a little, but that's what being outside of the box is.

Maybe you have thought "outside the box", in a way. If your mother says peas for dinner- you respond "Can we have carrots instead". If think of a movie to watch, then change your mind to another- that is thinking "outside the box". That is being creative, like thefunkyone said. Weird sometimes, everyday stuff sometimes.

A good place to start would be by stopping using cliched, virtually meaningless management-speak phrases like "thinking outside the box"! Where is this box? What's so bad about it that you want to think outside it? How come you're in a box in the first place? Have you ever even tried thinking inside a box? How does one think in a box anyway? How about literally getting in a box and then thinking in it? Creative writing courses teach students to avoid "dead" metaphors and similes such as "free as a bird" (how free is a bird? When you hear that phrase does it really conjure up images of total freedom, or does your mind just gloss over it because you've heard it so many times before it's lost all its meaning?) and instead to truly conjure up the feeling and idea of freedom and what it means to them and describe that- (perhaps hurtling down a ski slope only just in control of your own centre of gravity- for a bad example- maybe freedom to you is wondering around New York maxing out your credit cards), that's the way to get something fresh, original and evocative. My point is that you just chose a cliched phrase picked up from books or other people, and probably haven't really considered what exactly it means, and whether its appropriate for your purpose. Therefore you ended up sounding boring and uncreative. This theory applies to actions and thoughts as well as words, and goes as much for something like accounting as it does the arts. Tired old ideas produce tired old results. To be more creative and original the first thing you have to do is to stop re-hashing others old thoughts and to really think for yourself. Approach subjects as if no-one has ever said anything or thought anything about them before. Use your own thought process, trust your instincts, do your own research. Go in from unexpected angles, try to think about an activity without using any of the conventional jargon associated with it. (This can be surprisingly effective, my virtually computer illiterate boyfriend is often the one to fix a fault with my computer, simply because he goes in from a purely logical standpoint, rather than the "computer scientist" one of what you expect to be wrong)

I don't like this phrase much, as Lady Fuschia says -- its too cliche. However, its still an answerable question and worth reflecting on. The "box" is basically past-based, conditioned thinking about anything. We are all very much subject to forming "thought-habits": the tendency to think the same kinds of thoughts over and over again, and we're heavily influenced by what others think. Its almost as if the ideas we believe have a life of their own, and keep endlessly recirculating (with occaisional mutations) in the world's "mental ecosystem". This isn't necessarily a bad thing, its part of how we learn about life to some degree. But it does tend to become stale and suppressive -- new ideas have to "fight for existence" in this ecosystem against a sometimes entrenched set of fallacies opposing them. The key to having new ideas which aren't a part of the existing "box o' thoughts" is to build your awareness of what the box is and what specific ideas are in it. To the degree that you are aware of the box's contents, your mind will naturally begin to see and conceive things which aren't already in that set. Our culture is very big on thinking: we think that thinking is the end-all and be-all of adulthood sometimes. This isn't true, however. The real power in the mind isn't thinking, its awareness. Awareness isn't thinking, and thinking isn't awareness, and we're mostly pretty confused about that. So, we think that "thinking outside the box" is really important, but even when we think outside the box, we're still being constrained by the problems inherent in thought itself: thoughts are just concepts. They're representations or pointers to reality, they're not Reality itself. Awareness is about direct experience of Reality, its not about concepts or thinking. It has the power to transform our thinking. So if you really see the nature of the "box", you won't be concerned so much about thinking outside of it, you'll be interested in seeing Reality directly without the intermediate filter of concepts and thoughts clouding the view.

To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.~Irving Wallace Question authority, question convention, question the media, question yourself, and question "normal"... especially, don't believe anything unless you can prove it to yourself. check it out: http://jennluna.tblog.com/post/212769

What has worked for me is that whenever I see somebody come up with a new concept, or idea, that I myself consider 'outside the box´, I spend some time admiring it. I try to think what angle the person came from, what kind of thought process one must have to approach an old issue from that new perspective. If I insist on it, and kind of 'meditate' on it for a while, I have found that when I am confronted with a new problem I start analysing it from unexpected viewpoints. It comes naturally after a while, not on purpose if you will. Apply yourself to it for a while and it will come by itself if you really want it to.

I disagree people bashing here about this. It's a cliche term, but it means something important. Thinking outside the box, just means be creative about what solutions you're thinking about. Look at various possibilties. Both direct and indirect and out of the way possibilities in solutions for the problem. Also it's about somethings not using complicated solutions or thoughts to resolve a problem. Trying to be simple. Such as the answer for the question "How do you a Giraffe in a refrigerator?" Answer: Open the Refrigerator, Put the Giraffee in , Close the Regrigerator. So somtimes, "thinking outside the box" also means, "thinking inside the box" - which means offering simple solutions.