Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Watching the brain while daydreaming

This idea of structured daydreaming may have some validity. In offering some advice on how to become more creative, Anne Kreamer suggests that we let our minds wander. She offers a link to a recent paper in PNAS that describes the results of experiments using functional MRI brain imaging to determine which areas of the brain are active when we're concentrating on a task and which regions light up when our mind wanders. They observe activity in both the "executive" (controlled thinking) and "default" (automatic thinking) networks. As activation of the executive network typically represses activity in the default network, daydreaming may create a state in the brain that is particularly well-suited to creative thinking. This parallel recruitment of the two networks

"is reminiscent of the neural recruitment observed during creative thinking, where executive regions and default regions are activated before solving problems with insight...Thus, mind wandering may be part of a larger class of mental phenomena that enable executive processes to occur without diminishing the potential contribution of the default network for creative thought."

The essence of staying loose is letting the random process of idea generation occur while paying enough attention to record the ideas but not being so actively engaged to inhibit idea generation.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Stay loose

I've bumped into three disparate ideas that have coalesced into a single harmonious principle. Embracing chaos and unpredictability, thinking without extending excessive cognitive attention and focus enhances creativity, and working to create a future rather than trying to anticipate future events all speak to the value of acting and reacting rather than planning and executing.

We always know where we start when we face a problem or establish a goal. I favor developing a plan that has a reasonable probability of success that requires minimal time and energy over blindly executing a detailed protocol. Get the plan started and adjust as dictated by events. Acting shakes out the unforeseen. Used wisely, unanticipated difficulties are easily altered to look more like unexpected opportunities.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Consistency

I frequently find myself thinking back to a hastily organized talk given by John Fenn on the morning of his Noble Prize announcement. He gave a retrospective of his career where he gave serendipity and luck a starring role in his success. He spent his career kicking over rocks, and he had been lucky enough to find something interesting underneath a few of them.

As I think back on his comments, I see how his consistent effort to understand and solve problems gave him the insight he needed to develop electrospray ionization. Sure, when you look back you can weave a modest story of how a kid from the back woods of Kentucky bumbled his way to the highest scientific award in the world. But at the heart of that story is a country kid who worked hard every day. He picked up a little something here and a little something there. By themselves those little bits of knowledge may not have been much, but the substantial mass of those little insights made all the difference when it came time to figure out electrospray ionization.

Every day offers valuable training. Just because we may not know what we're training for doesn't make it any less important.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Narrowness of Expectation

There was a nifty little summary of recent creativity research in The Wall Street Journal last weekend. The information wasn't new to somebody well-versed in the field, but it did distill a common theme that emerges from a number of these independent investigations. You can't think too hard when you're trying to come up with a new idea. Focused thought seems to rely on established patterns and connections. There is not likely to be much novelty in those well-trod paths. Attentive day-dreaming, where you may get your mind going down a particular track before sending it on its way, mines a richer vein of potential associations. Some crazy idea that would be rejected outright when you're critically evaluating every new idea could get a little traction and spin off in a new direction.

I spend too much of my time sitting at my desk and looking out the window. People have come to see me when I'm in one of these moments. I look idle, staring off into space, but I'm actually hard at work. It may not look like it, but these are my most productive moments.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Accumulating Body Blows

I've often wondered at the source of Anthony Trollope's prolific output. How could one man generate so many thick books that were written with a quill? Baumeister has provided the answer. Well, Trollope revealed his methods in an autobiography, but I just read about it in Willpower.

"He would write for two and a half hours, monitoring the time with a watch placed on the table. He forced himself to produce one page of 250 words every quarter of an hour. Just to be sure, he counted the words. At this rate, he could produce 2500 words by breakfast. He didn't expect to do this every single day, but he made sure each week to meet a goal. For each of his novels, he would draw up a working schedule, typically planning for 10,000 words a week, and then keep a diary/"

Brilliant work is never executed in isolation. Novels that change lives, paintings that transform art, or albums that change the way you think about music have their roots in the daily struggle to create something meaningful. The breakthrough success is built not a single moment of inspiration but countless hours of tedious accumulation.