By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3
I hear voices. There, I admitted it. And I’d bet good money you hear them, too.
Here’s how it usually works: About one percent of the time, I hear the voice when I’m at my desk, desperate for a new idea. The other 99 percent of the time, it happens when I’m washing dishes, driving my car, shampooing my hair, changing laundry loads, or walking. When I’m not in “work mode,” that’s when it comes — one sentence I hear inside my mind. Often it’s not even a complete sentence. But when I finally hear it, I feel the same thrill you get when you see a magic trick. You don’t understand it, but you’re happy to be amazed by it.
I scribble the sentence down with whatever is closest — the backside of a receipt, a voice memo on my phone, or an email I send to myself at midnight. I have to capture it quickly before it flits away like a rare butterfly. I’ve learned the hard way not to make magic wait. If you do, it’ll get bored and go find someone else to inspire.
One sentence might not sound like much of a magical gift, but it is because it’s the beginning. And the beginning of any project is always the hardest, most intimidating part. Once I have a good line to work with, I’m like a puppy with a rope toy. I shake it this way and that, tug on the ends, and chase it wherever it goes. Before I know it, I’m having fun, and that’s when creative work is at its best.
After three decades of writing, you’d think I’d have it figured out by now. Instead, I fall into the same trap over and over — the one where I convince myself that if I work harder and longer, I can force good ideas to the surface. Do you do this, too?
But today I ran across an article that helped me realize what all our best ideas and moments of inspiration have in common: They come in the calm.
The article appeared in a digital magazine called Tech Fixated, examining the science behind the “ah-ha” moments we all experience from time to time. It might not feel like it, but your brain is always at work in one of two different ways. There’s what I’ll call the “worky work” mode when we’re focused on specific tasks. And there’s what scientists call the “default mode,” which is the background work our brain does even when we’re not doing anything.
A published study showed that people who spent time in “idle activities” (like staring out a window or taking a leisurely walk) had a “surge in creative insights” compared to people who stayed focused on specific tasks. Crazy, right?
But maybe it’s not crazy. Because if we could all have million-dollar ideas simply by working extra hard, we would’ve done it by now. We live in a society that admires and glamorizes workaholics, and many of us have bought into the notion that busy equals good and rest equals lazy. But the science doesn’t support that theory, as pointed out in this line from the article mentioned above: “This always-on mentality creates a vicious c
ycle: as we consume more, we train our brains to crave even more busyness, leaving us depleted and less capable of solving problems effectively.”
When you step away from your “worky work” to give your brain a much-needed break, try not to spend that downtime with your phone. I love my phone as much as you do, but let’s admit that it’s not necessarily relaxing. Everything on a smartphone has been engineered to distract and hijack our brains’ attention. If that fact weren’t true, we wouldn’t be checking our phones more than 200 times per day, which works out to be once every 5 minutes of our time spent awake.
Here’s the good news: You don’t have to ditch your phone or completely rearrange your life to give your brain a better chance to solve problems and create new ideas. Start with 10 to 15 minutes a day. See if you can genuinely do nothing without beating yourself up about it and without picking up your phone at the first hint of boredom. That inner voice that wants to solve the problem or whisper its next great idea to you won’t speak up until it’s sure you’re in a calm, no-pressure setting where you can actually hear it.
So consider this your official permission slip: Go watch paint dry. Gaze out the window. Watch the grass grow. Stare into space. Daydream the way you once did in the middle of math class. Your brain and your soul both need it. Just do it — by doing nothing at all.
Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.