The advertising titan, David Ogilvy always said the best way to come up with a new idea for a client is to first go out for a long walk.
Instead of holding his most important meetings in his office, Steve Jobs preferred walking around his neighborhood with a colleague, just talking about stuff.
William Wordsworth, the great English poet of “I wandered lonely as a cloud” fame, composed his poems not at his desk, but in his head, while walking the hills of the Lake District. Legend has it, locals would see him striding past, this apparent madman, bellowing out works-in-progress at the top of his lungs.
Wordsworth didn’t need an 8am coffee-and-bagel brainstorming session surrounded by people who, let’s be honest, couldn’t come up with an original idea if their life depended on it.
Ideas rarely come when we’re looking for them.
They come later. On the long route home through the park. While cooking your favorite meal. While playing cards with your kids.
As Don Draper said in Mad Men, “Just think about it deeply, then forget it, and an idea will jump up in your face.”
He was giving advice to his copywriter protege before her first solo assignment. And it might be some of the most useful creative advice ever uttered on television.
Nothing better than a good walk to make this happen.
Our brains have a background system called the Default Mode Network. It activates when we’re resting, playing, walking, daydreaming. When we stop consciously fixating on a task, it kicks in.
And what it does is make unexpected connections.
We absorb information while we work. Then we disconnect, and the Default Mode Network reconfigures that information into insight. That “eureka” moment? It didn’t come from nowhere. It came from your brain doing its best work while you weren’t watching.
This is why creativity and productivity don’t scale linearly with effort.
If they did, the most creative people would universally be the ones pulling 12-hour days. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they’re not.
During even the most intense periods of World War II, Churchill napped. Same time every day: 5:00 PM.
He said, “Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination.”
Whatever your daydreaming poison of choice is, whether it’s a walk or a nap or doing the dishes, it might be the unlock for some extra creativity because it gives the Default Mode Network room to play. And in doing so, sets the stage for lightbulb moments.
You don’t need to apply more pressure to your already over-programmed brain. You just need a good pair of shoes. Or maybe some nice pajamas.
