Spend More Time In The Shower

Most organizations schedule time for creativity. Call it a brainstorming seesion or an off-site or any other clever title you want to give it - the concept is the same - it's a time in the calendar to be creative, to think outside the box, come up with innovative solutions or generate ideas.  The problem is, you can't schedule creativity. 

When we "sit down to think," we engage our rational brains. This is the part of the brain we use to weigh the pros and cons or engage our "expertise." But consider how many problems or ideas we have in the shower, in the car heading to work, lying in bed or any other place that we're certainly not consciously trying to solve any problems.  That's because our subconscious brains - our limbic "feeling" brains - have access to vastly more information than our conscious "thinking" brains. Monumental amounts more, in fact.  Our rational brains can access the equivalent of about 2 feet of information around us.  Our subconscious brains can access the equivalent of 11 acres of information around us. Every experience, every lesson, every mistake, every success is all stored away and your brain has the capacity to access that information, even though you're not conscious of it.

This is what gut decisions are - this is why we say they "feel" right.  Because the feeling part of our brain is digging deep into our past to help guide our decisions. This is the reason experiences matter. The more experiences you have, the more data your limbic brain has to access, which will help generate ideas or solve problems.

When we take showers or go for a drive (or paint or run or wherever you allow your mind to wander), it continues trying to solve the issues we face in our lives at the time.  It accesses all our past experiences to help us see things our conscious brains can not.

This is the reason, when you visit an office filled with "creative" people, they have video games, pin ball machines, toys and all sorts of other distractions.  Things that stop them from thinking...things to help "inspire" them.

I used to be one of those people who likes to take a quick shower in the morning and get on with my day. But not anymore.  About 6 months ago, I realized that when I took longer showers, I would have about 2-3 really good ideas while in there.  So now I take long showers every morning and just listen to the water. I don't concentrate on anything, I don't try to think of anything specific, I don't spend more time washing.  I just stand under the water and let my mind wander.  I now get about 2-3 really good ideas every morning (then I have to repeat them to myself out loud over and over while drying then run and take notes before I forget them).

Find the place your mind wanders, the place you solve problems or have ideas and spend more time there.  If your morning commute is when you have all your ideas, for example, then, from time to time, just go for a drive without having a destination and just enjoy the drive.  Let your mind wander.

If your team has a big problem to solve or you need big ideas from them, don't lock them in a room to figure it out - let them go for a walk, wander around a museum together, listen to music. Play games, throw a ball around, read children's books.  Let a mind wander and you'll be amazed at what it discovers.

If you haven't already seen the video of Birds on a Wire, click here to see what you can create if you let your mind wonder.

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Comments

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The specialists from Great Britain stated that it's healthy to stay in the shower.

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The best ideas I found in the shower. It's such a nice feeling to just stay and think.

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Im absolutely conscious to this happening. It's a learning progress to all of us.

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[JedEye]

Hello there.
Some companies actually found the way to schedule creativity! They noticed that giving complete autonomy to employees helps in that. This video might be very interesting if you like to learn about human behaviours as much as I do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

I`m not connected to makers of this video btw,I just like it and wanted to share.

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On the other hand the Times chart may have well been just a table. What was the use of the donuts? Your chart did a great job of actually visualizing the data and conveyed the illustrated concept much more clearly.

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When we compost garbage and recycle cans, when we clean a room and put coasters under glasses, when we care for everything we touch and touch it reverently, we become the creators of a new universe. Then we sanctify our work and our work sanctifies us.

[APB]

Maybe you could think up some creative ideas on how not to waste natural resources while brainstorming.

[Louise Goodman]

I'm all for great ideas but I'm also all for water conservation!

[davidburkus]

Hmm. Thinking about those organizations. They do call it creative time but, if used effectively, isn't it more just dedicated time to pursue the ideas that occurred in the shower?

[Katie Jones]

(I didn't like my little scrawl below, so I revised what I wrote)

You could set aside a time each day in order to experience creative ideas -- to remove your "rationally thinking" mind. Or, you could employ all levels of your mind by simply shifting your mind set.

If you truly have a cause and you truly have a "why", do not just extend this to your business; what if part of your "why" actually happens "after hours"? As the creative people you mentioned might agree, your "why" is not just a simple matter of, for example, a river running into the ocean. While on one level it is a personal journey, on another level it's a matter of several ecosystems working all at once in harmony -- and as you know, inspiration does not happen on our schedule. It just happens.

Once you have a "why", the world opens itself up to you on the "how" level. Ideas, people, sights, sounds all come to us whimsically. Haven't you ever thought of how strange it is, that whereas only moments before, someone was not a part of your existence, now, suddenly, they are? Ideas work the same way! So why are we treating them differently?

It is certainly helpful to have pinball tables and things that we identify as trustworthy inspiration sources. But everything is a tool -- everything is useful, and helpful -- whether we recognize it or not. And typically, we choose not too. This is why we label some people as "autistic". This is why we label some things as "natural resources" - the resources we have identified as useful. And yet, a common role model that we like to call the world employs everything for the world to keep moving. Why not take bio-mimicry to the next level and do as the world does to further our "why"?

You have said similar things -- that not only do entrepreneurs see the things that they want, but that problems become opportunities when proposed solutions are embraced. But I don't imagine that someone who is in the habit of seeing the things they want does themselves a great service when they think "Now I've got the entrepreneur button on, and now it's off".

If you allow the world to open itself up to you on the "how" level it will become an explosion of a garden in which you have potentially millions of opportunities to help your dream grow. You see something like 3000 ads daily, right? But you are exposed to much, much more than that in different mediums. The trick is to believe that everything that presents itself to you is just the smooth pebble you were looking for to complete your new path to your goal.

If you can do that, then ideas will start lining up. They will invade your very being. You won't be able to get away from them, because they will be crowding up at your door.

The only downside (although I don't think of it as such) is that sometimes -- for example, once when I was looking at a map of China -- you will be required to abruptly leave your area of work, run across the street like a madman, and breathlessly share a particularly fantastic idea with someone whom you know will be just as excited as you about it.

But that is the point -- to be excited at the variety of useful information coming at you daily, because there is such a wealth available to you to help bring your "why" to fruition.

[Katie Jones]

Why not have your "why" and then proceed to experience every moment, every sound, every sight as something that can potentially bring you closer to your goal? That is, things in our outer world often appear to us just as whimsically as ideas do -- so why not treat them the same?

It can in four ways -- 1, as affirmative, 2, as a "not this, but that" -- indirectly affirmative, 3, "maybe this, but how?" and 4 -- "this... and this... make... what?"

You did say, after all, that not only do entrepreneurs see the things that they want, but that problems become opportunities when solutions abound :) If that is the case, I don't imagine that this mindset ever shuts off. And if that's true, why not use it on another level?

The world becomes an explosion of a garden in which you have potentially millions of raindrops to help your dream grow. And once you start thinking like that, creative ideas start lining up. They invade your very being.

The only downside (although I don't think of it as such) is that sometimes -- for example, when I was looking at a map of China -- you will be required to abruptly leave your area of work, run across the street like a madman, and breathlessly share your idea with someone whom you know will be just as excited as you about it.

[Garito]

My own experience (everyone has it's place)

I have my better ideas in 2 places: dreaming (lucid dream, you go to the bed asking to the universe, god or the love you feel for your people the think you need to understand and if this love is a real and unconditional you will dream what you ask for. This only happend to me when I'm in love for some nice girl) and drinking beer with my friends (sometimes you are out but bored. I spend this boring moments to think on my ideas and I solve so much problems with this behaviour)

Find you sacred (sacred because is yours and only yours) way to meet with yourself. A way were you joy as a child. When we become big children we conect the whole body in full duplex (our calcium lost 2 electrons and become superconductors) and the brain can connect with this 11 acres of subconscious information (the conscious information is always located in the brain but the subconscious is located everywhere in your body)

Cheers