by Sunil Bali, 08-07-12

When you’ve had a great idea, or have been at your most creative, what have you been doing?

Research by the Harvard academic Leslie Perlow shows that we’re most creative when we’re doing pretty much nothing and have switched off. This could be when we’re out for a walk, in the shower, or simply daydreaming.

Perlow has shown that taking time out from the constant wall of noise – email, texts, conversations, social media – gives the brain time to relax and light up our creative pathways.

When we’re always switched on and in "bleisure" (the blurring of leisure and business) mode, we’re blocking the creative process and stopping creative thoughts from bubbling to the surface.

Quiet time would appear to be the key to reconnecting to our creativity.

Martin Raymond, co-founder of the trend forecasting think-tank The Future Laboratory predicts that instead of finding hotspots where we can connect to the internet "the future will be about cold spots: holidaying where you can’t use your phone."

"The Times" journalist Laura Atkinson echoes this sentiment and says that, "quiet rooms with zero phone signal are where we will go for our coffee breaks in the future."

Google are already there with their most popular training course Search Inside Yourself. This mindfulness in the workplace course is taught by practising Buddhist and Google employee Chade-Meng Ten. It’s been a huge hit with Google employees and has been endorsed by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

So next time you answer an e-mail when most people are tucked up in bed, maybe you want to think about switching off and going on a digital diet…..apparently it’s good for you and your business.

Quotes

You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. – Franz Kafka

Take care of the thoughts and the actions will take care of themselves – R. H. Blyth

When the will and imagination are in conflict, it is always the imagination that wins – Emile Coue

Awaken the mind without fixing it anywhere – Diamond Sutra

Humour

In case of marital breakdown…..

This is a compilation of actual (allegedly) student bloopers collected by teachers.

  1. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted “hurrah.”
  2. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.
  3. Gravity was invented by Izak Newton. It is most noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
  4. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.
  5. When you breathe you inspire. When you do not breathe, you expire.
  6. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

If you enjoyed reading this blog then please feel free to share it. Until next week…..

To your success,

Sunil

www.sunilbali.com