Daydreaming of Becoming a Better Human
Lala Land
Navel Gazing
Wool Gathering
Space Cadet
Daydreaming, the first creative habit in my 5 part DANCE series, doesn’t have the best PR team. Teachers banish it. Bosses shake their fingers at it. But it might be the most important work. What happened to coffee (or “Smoke”) breaks? Or a full hour for lunch to decompress, chat with colleagues, and allow information in our brains to sort itself out? In the name of being busy and productive, we are starving ourselves of idea percolation time.
In Adam Grant’s book Think Again (highly recommended), he tells the story of the writers at Warner Brothers. They spent much of their time daydreaming and thinking up new stories. Head Honcho Jack Warner would walk past the writer’s block and complain that the writers weren’t doing anything because he couldn’t hear the sound of typewriters. What did the writers do? No, they didn’t sit and type meaningless crap all day to satisfy the boss. Instead, they continued to do what worked and hired a lookout to alert them when Jack was on the way.
Ideas need space and time. We spend too much of our day filled with minutia, detail, and ways to maximize our productivity. Have you ever felt like your whole day entailed answering or writing emails? Those days are exhausting and also pointless. Or, how often have you stood in line at a coffee shop without pulling out your phone?
J.K. Rowling was stuck on a train with no book, no smartphone, nor even a Rubik’s cube. As she stared out the window of the train, the entire Harry Potter story swirled in her head. It took years of painstaking work to make the Harry Potter Series come to life, but it started with a daydream. Which, incidentally, was what got her fired from a previous job. Talk about focusing on your strengths!
The cool science part of daydreaming is that when we are thinking about “nothing”, our brains are extremely active. The term “Default Mode Network” or DMN is used to identify this cluster of areas in the brain. Such a boring name for such an exciting function!
Here’s a quick little video for those nerds in the room for more on the DMN.
Over the next 5 months, I’m launching a full-blown creativity a$$ kicking program (free!). Each month I send out a short newsletter, announcing the theme. I’ll give you a bit of background about why the habit is important, then send you to practice. August is Daydreaming.
Every week I’ll share a “Dare”, that aligns with the monthly theme so that you can put these principles into action.
The Dare is an easy task via video. I implore you to join in and share your experience. Creativity is contagious! And, reading without action is like imagining without doing. Or baking without eating. Or flying without looking out of the window. You get the idea.
Finally, in an interview series, I’ll share ideas from “non-creatives” who have used everyday creativity to improve their life at home or at work. Feel free to steal their ideas for your own life. Creativity is plagiarism, undiscovered (Source unknown).
Check out these “mostly live” interviews on Wednesdays at 930 am PST/12:30 PM EST on my Linkedin or Youtube channel.
Replays of the I dare you series and the interviews, plus more, are available on my Youtube channel. Or, join a supportive community on Facebook to share your silliness. Let’s play billionaires and launch into space, figuratively.
You are creative, and it has nothing to do with paints or piano, I promise.
