In a recent column in Wired, Jonah Lehrer shares the results of some research reported in Science magazine that demonstrates that people who daydream the "right" way (called "mind-wandering," more on which later), score higher on tests of creativity.
This, of course, flies in the face of what we've been taught to believe by parents, teachers, managers, and anyone else who has caught us thinking about something other than what we're "supposed to" be paying attention to. As Lehrer says, "When people are immersed in monotony, they automatically lapse into a very special form of brain activity: mind-wandering. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, mind-wandering is often derided as a lazy habit, the kind of thinking we rely on when we don’t really want to think. It’s a sign of procrastination, not productivity."
"Mind-wandering" describes the daydreaming that correlates with creativity. And it refers to the simultaneous activation of the "executive function" and the "default network," or the part that's doing the non-focused wandering. This suggests that what's really happening is that the two supposedly opposing parts of the brain are actually working together in a very special -- and useful -- way, with the executive function monitoring the daydream to see if there's anything useful showing up, such as a big new idea.
It's important to note that this is not the brain just "shutting down," and in fact, mind-wandering is a metabolically intense process -- lots of energy is consumed.
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In one of the studies quoted, researchers at UCSB found that the people who were NOT aware of their mind-wandering don't exhibit increased creativity. So to make it productive, we advocate the practice of "focused concentration," more of which is described here. Being aware of the mind-wandering is the distinctive skill which makes it useful, rather than just a lazy waste of time and energy.
An interesting side note in the article is the result of a study that, using an iPhone app, found that people were mind-wandering at least half of the time, which to me seems a bit low, but then maybe that has more to do with my facilitation/training style? Hopefully, I'm kidding. Can you guess the only time they were fully concentrating? Not when my colleagues are training, but rather while engaged in love-making.
So what can you do to prompt more useful mind-wandering? Well you could avoid having sex, but that's not what we're advocating here. Instead, try the following:
- Put away the smartphone when you're sitting around with nothing to do (e.g. on the train/bus, in an airport, waiting for someone, at lunch, etc.).
- Consider doing some of your workouts without your iPod (when I exercise outside, I don't use the iPod, but when trapped in the gym, I frequently do).
- Turn off the TV when you're making dinner.
- Avoid the radio for a period of time when you're in your car (one of our partners will sometimes deliberately drive to client engagements that are far away because it allows for lots of new ideas, some of which are quite good!).
In what other practices do you engage in order to induce productive mind-wandering?
