I go running during lunchtime 3 times a week. Most often with some female colleagues.
Sometimes we talk about life, the Universe and everything, sometimes we shut up and suffer uphill, and sometimes we solve problems in a creative way.
The other day, one colleague asked me how running made you more creative. Well:
- it provides a mental break, an incubation time for any ideas you have been working on, it gives them time to simmer and connect with other things
- you exercise physically which sets free endorphins, Epinephrine, serotonin and Dopamine , which basically make you happy, alert, persistent and energetic (and that is good for just about anything!)
- you see different things when you go for a run, which may trigger new ideas and connections in your brain that are beneficial to problem solving
- …
Another colleague said: “Well, I am just totally submerged in the budget cycle, and there is nothing creative about the budget…”
Well oh well… 
as it is with everything in life, it depends on how you look at it…
“Maybe, but I have to make a pitch to management and there is just no way to present a budget in a creative (and still serious) way.”
Fortunately there is! 
Because a budget can be associated with just about anything.
Take sex for example.
How is a budget like sex, you ask?
- It’s good when the outcome is positive.
- When the outcome is negative, it’s not the end of the world, you just try something else.
- You don’t know the final result from the start.
- There are different number combinations you can try.
- When you substract, add, divide something…the result changes.
- It can be short, long, complicated, fun,…
- Some people like it, some don’t.
- You need to change it from time to time.
- It can be presented in many different ways.
- …
Of course such an intro would probably not fare well with senior management. My suggestion would have been ‘How the budget is like washing powder’…but you can replace it with any object/subject you like and find the creative connections.