By Ruth Bremer
Where do you come up with your best ideas?
If you’re like many people, that place might be in the shower. So here’s a small business tip you don’t hear very often: you should spend more time being bored.
Bored? What small business owner has time to be bored?
You should make the time, argues Martin Lindstrom in this article from Fast Company. It all has to do with something called the “creative pause,” a phenomenon identified by Edward de Bono in his book Serious Creativity:
Although most people are unaware of the name for it, creative pauses are happening wherever people are solving problems. They occur among harassed CEOs, design directors, and small-business entrepreneurs. The creative pause allows the space for your mind to drift, to imagine and to shift, opening it up to new ways of seeing.
The trouble is, in this day and age it’s pretty rare to have a moment of complete boredom, free from distractions, interruptions and entertainment. When was the last time you were doing absolutely nothing, letting your mind take the time to wander and ponder?
You don’t have time to do nothing? Fine, multitask a bit if you must. Exercise is good for you, after all, so go for a walk or a run. Lindstrom likes to swim, which might be the best option for quiet reflection since your head is under water. But if you’re not a swimmer, try to avoid the treadmills at the gym where you can watch TV or check your email while you walk. Instead, go outside–and leave your phone behind.
If you get your best ideas in the shower, then by all means, you should shower often. Again, you’re multitasking here. No matter how busy you might be, you do have to clean up now and then. Remember, if you’re too busy to take a shower, not only will you start to stink, but you’re missing out on a chance to come up with the brilliant solution to your latest business predicament.
Most of us in the BlogMutt pack aren’t bored very often, either. We’re students, parents, full-time employees, busy freelancers, retirees. But in between all of that, we think, research, and write about your business. And we have to exercise and clean up once in a while too. Just imagine: an entire team of writers, all having moments of boredom–walking, swimming, commuting, showering, watching gymnastics lessons, or lying awake battling insomnia. And all the while, we’re coming up with innovative ideas for your blog.
Contact us, and let us put our creative pauses to work for you.
This is a wonderful post. I know I come up with many of my ideas in the shower. This was written by Ruth Bremmer, who’s done some great work for us in the past. She wrote one of the most inspiring posts ever for Blogmutt. While we give credit to writers on our blog, we are the only ones that do that. Blogmutt customers get the post with no byline, and can take credit for the posts as if they wrote them themselves. Just FYI. — Scott