Capture Instead of Compartmentalizing

“Some of the best solutions come at inopportune moments. For some reason, once I step away from the problem, it’s like a good idea almost ‘sneaks up on me’. So I’ve made a commitment to my subconscious that I’m going to write down whatever comes up.” Perry and I were recently interviewing an Irish technology executive who’s been keeping up a daily practice of writing ideas down. He described how the practice of forcing himself to write down ideas at a particular time of day has increased the likelihood of ideas striking at other times, as well. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that ideas tend to strike at inopportune moments.

I especially liked the notion of making a “commitment to the subconscious” — an agreement with oneself that you’ll capture ideas whenever they come. (I’ve mentioned before how handy it is to keep a post-it pad on the bedside table for the same reason.) For whatever reason, ideas often come when in motion, which are particularly inopportune times. Our Irish friend mentioned that so many ideas have come to him while he’s surfing that he’s thought about bringing a water-proof notepad while he paddles out!

David Byrne has the habit of bringing a Dictaphone with him on bike rides because, as he says, “You never know when an idea is going to come to you.”

Despite such delightful anecdotal support for my own experience, I was surprised by the results of this Stanford-based study: researchers demonstrated that simply walking — even indoors on a treadmill — increased creative output by 60% on average! (Interestingly enough, the study showed no impact of walking on focused, single-outcome thinking.) As my friend and colleague Dr. Kathryn Segovia told a bunch of execs last week, as we encouraged them to take a walk during a break in class, “Exercise is like WD-40 for the brain.” (This study has also demonstrated a statistically significant improvement to creative output (and mood!) after aerobic exercise.)

The important thing is to not compartmentalize. It’s easy to think, once we “leave” work, that we can shut our minds off. Perhaps a better attitude is to be willing to let things marinate in the background, whatever else we may be doing, and commit to capturing anything our subconscious serves up, however inopportune the moment might be.

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