Written by Allen Zhu.
Spending time each day to let your mind wander is one of the best ways to rekindle your inventive side.
“The biggest breakthrough ideas often come from relaxation,” wrote Emma Seppala, Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), in an article for Quartz. Seppala notes how in researching for her book The Happiness Track, she found that the biggest driver for creativity isn’t angst or grief as popular culture has us believe (Vincent Van Gogh and Kanye West are two “tortured artists” that come to mind.). Instead, “creativity happens when your mind is unfocused, daydreaming or idle,” she wrote.
In an article by the University of California, Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and University of York professor Jonathan Smallwood, the authors found that people who are assigned with a challenge perform better if they first work on a simple task that promotes daydreaming before returning to the challenging one. Switching between linear, focused thinking and creative, idle thinking is an effective way to perform inventive work.
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