“The outsized discoveries — the "non-linear" ones — are highly likely to require wandering.”
—Jeff Bezos

Who’s got time to wander, these days? Bezos calls it a “requirement” to reach non-linear outcomes. But so much of the time, we are trapped in a linear world. We’d rather plod along, making incremental progress, than wander with the chance of a discovery, and with a chance at nothing.

This gets to a problem at the heart of creative work: it’s often inefficient. As Jerry Seinfeld quipped to Harvard Business Review, “If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way.”

For me, it helps to tell stories. They illustrate the value of non-linear methods, and give folks permission to work different.

That’s what I’m going to do this week at Qualtrics’ Executive Forum. They’ve asked me to lead a workshop on “Unlocking Innovation by Pursuing Inspiration,” one of my all-time favorite topics. I’m going to tell them about Steve Jobs’ inspiration treks to Macy’s. While sorting out a particularly gnarly design challenge on the Macintosh, Steve had a breakthrough:

“One weekend Jobs went to Macy's in Palo Alto and spent time studying appliances, especially the Cuisinart. He came bounding into the Mac office that Monday, asked the design team to go buy one, and made a raft of new suggestions based on its lines, curves, and bevels.”
— Water Isaacson, Steve Jobs

This wasn’t an uncommon practice for Steve Jobs. In fact, it wasn’t even the first time he’d drawn inspiration from a Cuisinart at Macy’s! But it speaks to an instinct that’s almost entirely uncultivated in business: getting outside of the office with purpose.

The most inventive folks I’ve studied are disciplined about seeking inspiration. But it takes time, and it’s rarely efficient. If you don’t make time to get out of the box, you will not be able to think out of the box, either. It’s not that complicated, but it requires you obliterate clean compartmentalization in favor of messy meandering.

To put it simply, step one is: Get out of the box. Wander.

Step two? Be purposeful. Think out there.

Related: Wander (Jeff Bezos)
Related: Be Inefficient (Seinfeld)
Related: Work Different
Related: The Inspiration Discipline (Lacrae)

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