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Being an enormous hippy, I have just completed a two-week detox that was bizarrely pleasurable. From day one I enjoyed improved creativity and much greater clarity of thought. And not just because I was being good to my body but, more profoundly, because I was stripping out the big distractions of food and booze.

Our lives are far too full for us to create to our potential. We are constantly bombarded by advertising messages and media pollution, which have numbed us to our surroundings.

We have become doing machines. If we are busy, we are happy regardless of whether what we are doing is adding value. If we have stuff to hear and see, our brains are busy and content. It becomes an addictive pursuit to gain external stimulus rather than to relish the internal.

To be creative, we need some external experience to provoke new and different thinking, but we must have time and space to process it and listen to our inner voices.

So, this month I am prescribing that you take a look at your life and ask what you can get rid of. What about TV? What about those projects at work that nobody cares about, the reports nobody reads? What about that dinner party you feel obliged to go to? Strip it out, live lean for a while and then you’ll know what's really important. The space you produce will be what you need to let that creativity flourish.

Chris Baréz-Brown is Global Head of Innovation Capability at ?What If! The Innovation Company

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