Business and daydreaming don’t seem like the most congruent pair out there; business at its heart is about profitable productivity whereas daydreaming for most amounts to little more than wasting time. But in the long run, allowing the mind to wander boosts creativity and creative insight, lending itself to the long term success of a business. Check out this article:
Apparently daydreaming and relaxation are key to finding creative insights to business problems. Think about that the next time you find yourself —or your employees — staring off into space.
Jonathan Schooler, a UC Santa Barbara psychologist who studies insight, has been able to demonstrate that people who consistently engage in more daydreaming score significantly higher on measures of creativity. According to Schooler:
“It’s not enough to just daydream. Letting your mind drift off is the easy part. The hard part is maintaining enough awareness so that even when you start to daydream you can interrupt yourself and notice a creative thought.”
In other words, we need to let our minds wander, yet pay attention to those moments when our daydreams generate creative insights. To encourage this creative process, Dr. Schooler says, it may help if you go jogging, take a walk, do some knitting or just sit around doodling.
Relatively undemanding tasks seem to free your mind to wander productively. But you also want to be able to catch yourself at the Eureka moment.
Go here for the full article, “Daydreaming Leads to Creative Insights”