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Iana Vitkova
Senior Director of Engineering at Wiser
It was a beautiful fall weekend and I was hiking up Mt. Moosilauke, one of the 4000 ft peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The beautiful views around me, the calm sounds of the rushing river snaking next to the trail, and the exercise-induced endorphins bathing my brain made me feel relaxed and happy. My mind started to wander and I started thinking about my work – not in a stressful “let me review my to-do list” way, but in an inspired and creative way. I thought about a feature that my team was starting to build and the technical challenges that made the feature time-consuming to develop. Then an idea popped into my head. What if we changed our approach? What if we implemented this in a different way? This new way would be much easier and faster to build and would actually give our users more flexibility. I stopped, pulled out my phone, jotted down my idea and sent it to myself in an email. I then continued on with my hike, blissfully enjoying the rest of my day in the mountains.
On Monday morning, I reviewed the notes I had sent to myself while hiking, spent some time further fleshing out the idea and then presented it to my team. “That’s brilliant!” one of my team members said. We ended up changing course and pivoting to this new approach. The feature was built in half the time and allowed our users to do more than the previous approach would have afforded them. With a feature that allowed our users more flexibility, they were able to drive significant progress towards the business outcomes we were targeting.
This story raises the question: Why is it that this idea came to me on a relaxing hike instead of while I was sitting at my desk in front of my laptop? The answer might seem counterintuitive, but it was precisely because I wasn’t actively thinking about it, because I let my mind relax and wander that I was able to tap into a creative space that generated this new idea. Tapping into this creativity has immense power. The idea I came up with while hiking allowed us to build a more impactful feature faster and cheaper. It had a meaningful impact on our company.
If this approach is so powerful, why is it that we don’t find ways to tap into it more often? Why do we sit at our desks, diligently working through our to-do lists instead of giving ourselves space for creativity? The answer is multi-faceted. Partially, it’s our hustle culture. Going out for a walk without a goal in mind during our workday seems woefully inefficient. Part of it is the urgency of our to-do list. Creative work is important, but it’s not urgent and we tend to prioritize the urgent first. The problem is that most of the time the urgent fills up our days leaving us no time for anything else.
In order to be more creative, we need to be intentional about making space for our mind to wander. Here are a few specific suggestions for how to do this:
Eliminate Low Value Tasks – In order to have time for creative thinking we have to clear the clutter. We are often saddled with more tasks than we can handle, but if we really look at these tasks with a critical eye we will see that not all are created equal and many of them are not high value. If we can eliminate these low value tasks, which are not worth the effort, we will have more time in our schedule for creative thinking. Are there tasks that don’t really need to be done? Are there tasks that can be delegated? Are there tasks in which you can invest less time, even if that means delivering with lower quality? If these tasks are truly low value, the impact of the diminished quality will be minimal. If you look at every task on your to-do list through the lens of return on investment you will likely find lots of opportunities for time savings.
Block Out Time for Creative Thinking – Unless we are intentional about blocking off time for creative thinking, it simply won’t happen. Every Friday afternoon I open up my calendar for the next week and I block off time to work on things that are important, but not urgent. I then fiercely protect this time. I use the time to think about the long term, think critically about the current state of my organization and brainstorm opportunities for improvement. Some of my best ideas have come from this intentionally blocked off time.
Step Away from the Keyboard – One of the reasons that creative ideas rarely come to us when we are sitting in front of our keyboard, is that our laptops are teeming with distractions. An email comes in or we hear the familiar ding of a Slack message and our focus is hijacked. To truly let our mind wander we need to step away from our desks. I find that going for walks is a great way to get the creative juices flowing. I will often grab a pen and a notebook and go for a walk to think about an idea. Even on busy days I try to find time to go for a quick walk around the block in between meetings. This keeps my mind fresh and creative.
Reduce Stress – Stress is a creativity killer. Stress puts our minds and bodies into the primal fight-or-flight mode. It’s great for keeping us from being eaten by a lion, but it actually suppresses creativity. Stress narrows our focus and keeps us from seeing multiple possibilities. There is no room for creative thinking if a lion is about to eat you! This is why in order to foster creativity we must manage our stress. A creative mind is a relaxed mind, so it’s important to take care of ourselves and manage our stress.
Like everything else in life, balance is key. Being successful requires equal parts creativity and execution. An idea without execution is just a dream, but relying solely on execution can lead us to run fast in the wrong direction. Most of us over-index on execution and could benefit from making more time for creative thinking. Try some of the techniques above to bring more creative thinking into your workday. You may be surprised at the results.