Nothing.

I sign up to receive HOW Design Magazine's e-newsletters. They often offer good adivce about design, creativity and the field of graphic design in general.

In today's email, there was a segment about how to refresh ourselves when our creative juices are no longer flowing. What was their suggestion? Do absolutely nothing. Check out the excerpt below:

An email newsletter from trendmaster Robyn Waters (a former Target exec who gave a great presentation at the HOW Conference a couple of years ago) struck a chord with me: She wrote about the pleasure—the importance—of doing Nothing. About stepping away from the desk, taking time to turn off the mental fire hose of things to do and tasks to complete and emails to send and errands to run. Years of working in a deadline-driven profession have made me a slave to my to-do list—a tendency that unfortunately extends to weekends. Robyn's point was simple: In order to be most effective, creative and successful, we have to let ourselves off the hook and take time to refresh by doing Nothing. Which I'll get to sometime later …

— Bryn Mooth, HOWdesign.com Email Update Editor

I often agree that stepping aside and allowing yourself to be removed from work is a great solution to creative problems. However, most of us are not fortunate enough to take a vacation and drop everything when we feel like it. I like to think that a good substitute, if need be, is to take your work with you elsewhere. A bookstore, a cafe, a park. Anything that might inspire you.

I know it's a little unfair, as I'm currently most fortunate to have a change of scenery for a while. Still, I thought I would share my current source of inspiration to you at the moment. This is the view from my flat's terrace in Montreux, Switzerland.