Powerful formula for setting and achieving goals

 Book, Creativity, goals, Leadership, Psychology  5 Responses »
Apr 172013
 

Procrastination be gone! Use written goals.

goals settings

Source: http://www.briantracy.com/

You’ve decided to be more creative, and you want to do something about it; maybe read more books on a variety of topic unknown to you in order to broaden your horizons. Or maybe it’s to travel more, learn how to sketch, pick up a new language (human or programming), etc… Whatever your goals are, you are very motivated to achieve them… the first day or maybe the first week and then procrastination sets in.

According to Brian Tracy in his best-selling book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, you need written goals.

Brian Tracy claims that only about 3 percent of adults have clear, written goals. These people accomplish five or ten times as much as people of equal or better education and ability but who, for whatever reason, have never taken the time to write out exactly what they want.

There is a powerful formula for setting and achieving goals that you can use for the rest of your life. It consists of seven simple steps. Any one of these steps can double and triple your productivity if you are not currently using it.

 

7 steps of the formula

 

  1. Decide exactly what you want. Either decide for yourself or sit down with your boss and discuss your goals and objectives until you are crystal clear about what is expected of you and in what order of priority.
  2. Write it down. Think on paper. When you write down a goal, you crystallize it and give it tangible form. You create something that you can touch and see. On the other hand, a goal or objective that is not in writing is merely a wish or a fantasy. It has no energy behind it.
  3. Set a deadline on your goal; set sub deadlines if necessary. A goal or decision without a deadline has no urgency. It has no real beginning or end. Without a definite deadline, you will naturally procrastinate and get very little done.
  4. Make a list of everything that you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new activities, add them to your list. Keep building your list until it is complete. A list gives you a visual picture of the larger task or objective. It gives you a track to run on.
  5. Organize the list into a plan. Organize your list by priority and sequence. Take a few minutes to decide what you need to do first and what you can do later. With a written goal and an organized plan of action, you will be far more productive and efficient than people who are carrying their goals around in their minds.
  6. Take action on your plan immediately. Do something. Do anything. An average plan vigorously executed is far better than a brilliant plan on which nothing is done.
  7. Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal. Build this activity into your daily schedule. You may decide to read a specific number of pages on a key subject. You may call on a specific number of prospects or customers. You may engage in a specific period of physical exercise. Whatever it is, you must never miss a day.

Keep pushing forward. Once you start moving, keep moving. Don’t stop. This decision, this discipline alone, can dramatically increase your speed of goal accomplishment and boost your personal productivity.

 

Improv techniques to boost your group’s creativity

 Creativity, Innovation, Leadership, Psychology  4 Responses »
Apr 142013
 

Your brainstorming sessions are going nowhere?
Try these improv techniques

Improv techniques

Source: http://bit.ly/10VOBQc

First of all, I should say that those improv techniques don’t involve having you stand up in front of an audience with a mic in hand and a stool at your side. It’s much less involving than that. In fact, they are extremely simple and yet incredibly effective. Read on to find out more.

We’ve all been in those meetings either at work, in the classroom, in a family gathering deciding on a vacation together, or in a community group where we need to generate new ideas and come up with an agreement on those ideas. Very often, we witness some brave souls offering their ideas, to have them rebuked with a harsh “NO!” or its sneaky cousin “yes, BUT…”.

At that point, whatever creativity flow was in the room screeches to a dead stop or is replaced by a confrontational back-and-forth where all parties hunker down and are dead set on defending their ideas and ignoring any other ideas. In the end, the strong personalities end up imposing their ideas. The end result: very few ideas are generated, egos get hurt and everyone comes out frustrated.

What if there is a better way that would remove the risk of  strong personalities or personal glory getting in the way of the creative process? A way where everyone has to actually listen to the members of the group’s ideas and be willing to embrace them for at least a little bit? A way where everyone involved ends up looking good?

3 simple improv techniques

Those techniques come from the world of improvisation where creativity and flow of ideas is paramount. They have been taught for decades to aspiring comedians (think Steve Colbert) and recently to a much more diverse audience ranging from adventurous business leaders, to nerds, to husband/wife in couple therapy.

The techniques (actually more they are more like guidelines) are incredibly simple:

  1. Use “yes, AND…” (vs. “no!” and “yes, BUT…”) because it forces you to listen to the other person’s ideas and to accept their idea (even if it’s just for a bit) in order to allow you to build on it. It’s about acceptance. Knowing that everyone will have to accept your idea as part of the exercise will embolden you to offer more creative ideas instead of sticking to safe suggestions.
  2. Accept every offer. That’s one of the cardinal rule of improvisation. Go with the flow and never antagonize the person who suggested the idea.
  3. Make the others look good. This gets your ego out of the way. Establish the rule to make your counterpart look good and shed some positive light on their best ideas.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of those improv techniques. They do work and not solely on the stage of comedy clubs.

So, the next time you are in a group setting, seeking to generate ideas, offer those 3 guidelines at the beginning of meeting and witness how the dynamics of the group will radically improve. You will be surprised by how well the techniques work.

Have you have ever tried those techniques?  Will you try them in the future and share the outcome? I’d love to hear your feedback ! Use the comment section below.

Your memory sucks? Blame it on Gutenberg and Google!

 Creativity, Innovation, Psychology  4 Responses »
Apr 072013
 

The modern man doesn’t know how to use his memory

memorization technique, memory palace

Credit: http://bit.ly/10uAGCa

I recently finished listening Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer’s fascinating book about his yearlong quest to become a top “mental athlete”. His journey is really about how our mind’s memory developed and works from an evolutionary and historical perspective.

My reference to Gutenberg is of course about his introduction of movable type printing to Europe and how it revolutionized the inexpensive printing of books. Believe it or not, for hundreds of years prior, going back to Ancient Greece, learned people actually memorized tons of things because there was no book and written materials were very rare and confined to far-away libraries. Anecdotes of ancient and medieval people who were able to commit to memory huge amount of written material abound. It was told that an Ancient Greek named Charmadas could recite the contents of any volumes in libraries as if he were reading them.

And it wasn’t only about memorizing or recalling books; Seneca the Elder could repeat two thousand names in the order they’d been given to him. Think about that the next time you struggle to remember someone’s name at a cocktail/birthday party.

Incredibly effective memorization technique: Memory Palace

How did they do it? They used memorization techniques such the poetically named “memory palace”. They were so commonly known back then that very few written records of those techniques were found.

The memory palace mnemonic device relies on the fact that millions of years of evolution didn’t do such a good job at helping us memorizing people’s name, words, phone numbers, etc…, i.e. the important things in modern life.  Instead, our hunter’s brain was shaped to memorize physical locations in order to go hunting (and gathering), remembering the good and dangerous spots and taking us safely back to camp: I left my cave, crossed the river by the big fallen tree, went left at the large boulder, etc…

The mnemonic technique is about associating the things you want to remember (your grocery list) with known locations (the rooms in your house for example). Check out this wikihow article for more details on how to use the technique. Try it! It works amazingly well.

The strong link between memorization and creativity

Now you might ask: what’s the connection between memorization techniques and creativity/innovation which is the driving  topic of this blog?  The answer comes fromTony Buzan (a proponent of mental literacy and inventor of Mind Mapping. Also see my recent blog post on Mind Mapping) who’s quoted in the book as follows:

In our gross misunderstanding of the function of memory, we thought that memory was  operated primarily by rote. In other words, you rammed it in until your head was stuffed with facts. What was not realized is that memory is primarily an imaginative process. In fact, learning, memory, and creativity are the same fundamental process directed with a different focus.

The art and science of memory is about developing the capacity to quickly create images that link disparate ideas. Creativity is the ability to form similar connections between disparate images and to create something new and hurl it into the future so it becomes a poem, or a building, or a dance, or a novel. Creativity is, in a sense, future memory.

If the essence of creativity is linking disparate facts and ideas, then the more facility you have making associations, and the more facts and ideas you have at your disposal, the better you’ll be at coming up with new ideas.

Also, as Buzan likes to point out, Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was the mother of the Muses.

 

Mind pumping: Thinkertoys’ style!

 Creativity, Psychology  No Responses »
Mar 272013
 

Mind Pumping: “Pumping” it’s not for muscle only…

Mind Pumping

Credit: http://bit.ly/ZqC9Wg

I started rereading Michael Michalko’s book: Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking techniques, as a source of inspiration for a post for this blog. This book is so amazingly rich on ideas and techniques on creative thinking, it’s absolutely dizzying. It seems that any 1/2 page would be enough material for a good LighBulbBite.

But since I had to choose, I’d like to try to summarize chapter two, titled Mind Pumping.

The author’s premise for mind pumping, is that if you want to be creative, it’s not enough to have the intention of being creative, you must act like a creative person by going through the motion of an “idea person“.

9 great Mind Pumping exercises

  1. Idea quota: Set yourself an idea quota for a challenge that you are working on; say 5 ideas, every day for one week. Having a quota forces you to actively generate ideas rather than waiting for ideas to occur to you
  2. Getting tone: Really paying attention to the world around you will help you develop the extraordinary capacity to look at mundane things and see the miraculous
  3. Dukes of habit: Instead of always doing the things the same way, deliberately program changes into your daily life: take a different route to work, listen to a different radio station each day (different newspaper), change your reading habit (fiction vs. nonfiction), switch hobby, etc…
  4. Feeding your head: To quote Gore Vidal, “The Brain that doesn’t feed itself, eats itself”. So, read to feed your mind but:
    • Select carefully: how good an exercise for my creative mind will this provide?
    • Take notes
    • Read biographies: there are a treasure-house of ideas
    • Read how-to books on any subject
    • Read magazines on varied subjects
    • Read nonfiction: when reading nonfiction books, practice thinking up solutions to any problems presented in the book. JFK’s favorite exercise.
    • Think: think as you read and find connections/parallels between what you read and your problems
  5. Content analysis: observe the world around you (popular culture, your job, places where you travel, local/international news, conferences, etc…) and analyze what you see/absorb, look for connections, trends and patterns, and seek new opportunities/ideas out of your analysis.
  6. Brainbanks: collect and store ideas/thoughts like a pack rat: quotes, designs, ideas, questions, pictures, and words that might trigger ideas by associations. (I personally use Evernote for that very purpose).
  7. Travel Junkie: whenever you are feeling stale/bored, go to new store, trade/craft show, exhibition, library, museum, etc… Wander with an open mind and wait for something to catch your attention and connect it to your problems/challenges
  8. Think right: make your thinking more fluent (number of ideas) and more flexible (more creative).
    • Making lists is a powerful way to increase fluency. Example: list all the possible uses of WD40
    • Flexibility in thought means the ability to see beyond the ordinary/conventional. Be more improvisational and intuitive by focusing on processes rather than outcomes.
  9. Idea log: One of CIA’s favorite techniques for recording information in a written form. This enables the agent to instantly focus on all the ideas, comparisons, interrelationships and data relating to a given problem.

This was one chapter out of 39! Get the book for many more techniques/ideas.

Hopefully, this LBB will give you ideas on how to become more creative.  Don’t try all of them at once but do try some and let me how know how they work out for you.

I invite you to share your thoughts, feedback or your favorite Mind Pumping exercises below in the comment area. Looking forward to reading them!

 

Mind mapping: mapping ideas in and out of your brain

 Creativity, Design, Innovation, Psychology, Technology  5 Responses »
Mar 242013
 

A powerful technique to organize and generate ideas

Credits: http://bit.ly/X1LdWg

Credits: http://bit.ly/X1LdWg

According to Wikipedia:

A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information. A mind map is often created around a single word or text, placed in the center, to which associated ideas, words and concepts are added. Major categories radiate from a central node, and lesser categories are sub-branches of larger branches. Categories can represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items related to a central key word or idea.

And you go, huh?

Mind mapping is one of those techniques which is easy to demonstrate or show but difficult to describe in words.

Check out the following video for a quick primer using a basic example:

Why is this technique superior to your typical lists of bullet points?

It has to do with the way the brain functions. It doesn’t organize its information like sentences in a book, instead it’s stored as a large collection of ideas connected with one another.

Tony Buzan, a influential promoter of mind mapping, likes contrast traditional note taking vs. mind mapping:

  • Traditional note taking: a linear recording of information without connecting the concepts together. Doing without thinking
  • Mind mapping: radial explosion of visually interconnected ideas

The technique has been widely used to promote creativity, problem solving, and synergetic ideation. The main reason why it’s such a powerful tool for those activities is because it forces to create association of ideas in a very visual way which tends to be the brain’s favorite way to recall and create new relationship between ideas.

To get started, all you need is a blank sheet of paper, a few colored pens and you are ready to go using the following guidelines suggested by Tony Buzan himself:

Guidelines on how to create a mind map

  1. Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colors.
  2. Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map.
  3. Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters.
  4. Each word/image is best alone and sitting on its own line.
  5. The lines should be connected, starting from the central image. The central lines are thicker, organic and thinner as they radiate out from the centre.
  6. Make the lines the same length as the word/image they support.
  7. Use multiple colors throughout the mind map, for visual stimulation and also to encode or group.
  8. Develop your own personal style of mind mapping.
  9. Use emphasis and show associations in your mind map.
  10. Keep the mind map clear by using radial hierarchy, numerical order or outlines to embrace your branches.

Here’s a mind map on how to create a mind map… :-). The same website allows you to create online mind maps for free.

If you want to share your mind maps, or simply prefer to create them digitally, they are dozens of applications for desktop applications, web sites, and iPad/tablet/mobile applications to help you. Checkout Mind Mapping Software Blog for an impressive collection of reviews and recommendations.

Not convinced on where you would use mind mapping? Here are 100 reasons.

So, the next time you need to organize ideas in a new way or want to trigger new ideas, why don’t you give mind mapping a try?

PS: Have you ever used mind mapping? How did you like it? Share your comments below.

Metaphorical thinking

 Creativity, Design, Innovation, Psychology  6 Responses »
Mar 212013
 

Tap into the power of metaphors to boost your creativity

Metaphor: jaws in space

Credits: http://bit.ly/111cR4a

I once heard that Ridley Scott pitched his idea for his movie “Alien” as “Jaws in space” (confirmed here). How brilliant is that?! With that simple 3-word metaphor, the director was able to convey his novel idea for a movie so precisely that it baffles the mind!

A metaphor is a soft thinking technique connecting two different universes of meaning. Examples: Food chain, flow of time, fiscal watchdog. The key to metaphorical thinking is similarity. The human mind tends to look for similarities.

Excessive logical thinking can stifle the creative process, so use metaphors as a way of thinking differently about something. Invent and look for metaphors in your thinking. They are also potent tools as they make you and your audience look at things a different way.

Imaging within another sensory or conceptual frame can help. For example, in the visual images of spring which inspired Vivaldi’s “La Primavera”, one can clearly re-imagine then while listening to that piece of music.

When thinking of a problem and its solution, it helps to expose the mind with many related concepts. The hope is that the juxtaposition of 2 or more of those concepts will create a eureka moment that will lead to a solution. It’s not always a perfect fit but by stretching and examining the parts of the connection, you can start discovering new facets of the imperfect metaphor to lead you to the perfect solution.

Flex your metaphorical thinking muscles

Coming up with metaphors might come naturally for some of us as our brains tend to think metaphorically in the first place.  However, it’s sometime difficult to force their creation. It’s more like “they come to you” and not “you go to them”. That’s where English majors have an edge. That said, you can become good at it with some practice.

Here are some interesting resources on how to create and make use of metaphors.

Do you like metaphors? Share your favorite one(s) in the comments section below this post.

Find your muse between two sleeps

 Creativity, Innovation, Psychology  3 Responses »
Mar 172013
 

Use a forgotten sleep pattern to tap into your creativity

Credit: http://bit.ly/ZKIEE4

Credit: http://bit.ly/ZKIEE4

It happened again!
Last night, I went to sleep around 10:30 pm and woke up around 2:30 am with my brain completely fired up and intent on keeping me awake. And so I struggled with my mind to find peace and calm to go back to sleep, to no avail. It probably took 1 to 2 hours to fall asleep again.
What’s wrong with me?

According to this fascinating article The myth of the eight-hour sleep, there’s actually nothing wrong with me and in fact my internal sleeping clock might be more in tune with the way humans are supposed to sleep.

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month. It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep.

More recently, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks. From Homer’s Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria, the pattern of “first sleep” + waking period + “second sleep” was the norm for thousands of years.
The waking period was a solitary experience and in fact a doctor’s manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day’s labor but “after the first sleep”, when “they have more enjoyment” and “do it better”. Oh, the French!

Today’s “8-hour sleep” is indeed a fairly recent concept and came about with the Industrial Revolution and most notably with the advent of street lighting.

Frolic with your muse…

What does this have to do with creativity?
As mentioned in this post, creativity is strongly linked to the presence of alpha-waves in our brain. According to Wikipedia, these waves are mostly present during the relaxed mental state of the wake-sleep cycle, where the subject is at rest with eyes closed, but is not tired or asleep. Ring a bell?
Based on my personal experience, it is often in the middle of the night that I find my best ideas, especially “out of the box” ideas that require to connect completely disjoint bits of ideas.

So the next time you find yourself awake in the middle of the night, between first and second sleep, don’t fight it! Instead see it as an excellent time to frolic with your muse. Keep a notebook (or your smart-phone like I do) to jot down your ideas as they come to you while your mind wanders. When you’ll awake in the morning, you will be amazed by what you and your muse came up with.
Happy frolicking!

PS: Have you experienced this bi-modal sleep pattern? Are you more creative in the middle of the night? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Distant space/time/probability to boost your creativity?

 Creativity, Psychology  No Responses »
Mar 112013
 

Psychological Distance:

Brilliantly simple way to boost your creativity

Credit: http://bit.ly/Wj349m

Credit: http://bit.ly/Wj349m

In this fascinating Scientific American article, the authors (Oren Shapira and Nira Liberman) tell us that creativity is not bound by the sole innate characteristics of an individual and can in fact be changed based on situation and context.

Consider this experiment: 2 groups of participants from the Indiana University were asked to list as many different modes of transportation as possible. The first group was told that the task had been developed by Indiana University students studying in Greece and the second group was told instead that the task had been developed by Indiana University students studying in Indiana. The first group was able to generate more numerous and original modes of transportation that the second group.

How can such a minute detail have any significant influence on creativity?!

This phenomenon is referred as “Construal Level Theory (CLT) of Psychological Distance”, i.e. anything that we do not experience as occurring now and here. Attempting to take another person’s perspective or by thinking of a question as if it were unreal and unlikely, also fall in to that category of “psychological distant”.

According to CLT, psychological distance affects how we mentally represent things, where distant things are represented in an abstract way. Once classified as abstract (vs. concrete), it seems that the mind get an extra boost of creativity in solving or manipulating those abstract things.

Studies have also shown that projecting an event into the remote future can enhance creativity. In a series of experiments examining how temporal distance affects performance of insight and creativity tasks, participants were asked to imagine their lives a year later (distant future) or the next day (near future), and then to imagine working on a task on that day in the future. Once again, participants who imagined a distant future were more creative and insightful.

Finally, evidence shows that study participants were more successful at solving problems when they believe that they were unlikely to encounter the full task.

These findings have interesting practical implications. One can take simple steps to increase creativity by:

  • travelling (in person or just thinking about it) to faraway places,
  • envisioning distant future and
  • considering improbable alternatives to reality.

So, next time you are stuck on a problem that requires creativity, just picture yourself in a faraway place, in a far future, dreaming up of unlikely scenarios.

Now, if you do this in a shower, there will be no stopping you!

Questions/Comments? Use the “Enter your comment here…” box below.

Mutual fun and the right way to kill/promote ideas

 Creativity, Innovation, Leadership, Technology  No Responses »
Mar 102013
 

A very creative way to promote ideas within a group:
Mutual Fun

In the following video, Professor Hayagreeva Rao from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, delivers the message that killing ideas is way more important that collecting ideas.

Now, there’s the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it.

In most companies, the decision of promoting or killing ideas is left in the hands of a small committee  referred as the “Murder Board” by Professor Rao. According to Professor Rao, the murder board ‘s decisions may come across as arbitrary and in the worst cases subject those proposing the ideas to ridicule, humiliation and rejection, thereby killing their initiative. As a result, people watching those actions will become reluctant to suggest ideas in the future. The end result is that the smart people who were hired by those same companies become “dumb” or rather mute/silent.

To me the most interesting idea brought up by the video is the case-study of the company Rite Solutions. Their brilliant idea is to organize all the company’s idea into a “Stock Market for Collective Genius” that they call: Mutual Fun (no “d”).

 

3 principles behind mutual fun

In a nutshell, the concept behind Mutual Fun is organized around these 3 principles:

  • Every employee is given $10,000 of “opinion money” to buy savings bonds and stocks
  • Originators of ideas (either conservative or far-out ideas) are encouraged to develop “expect-us” (prospectus) and get “prophets” to get stock listed
  • Others can buy stocks, offer suggestions, and volunteer time.

Low-quality ideas don’t find “prophets” or are quickly eliminated for lack of support. However, since those ideas have been viewed by many employees, they may become the material for new ideas which might get more traction.

Anybody can suggest ideas and Professor Rao recalls that the receptionist of the company for example had 2 ideas in the Mutual Fun.

Rite Solutions developed some pretty sophisticated tools to show the “stocks” and stock activity in the Mutual Fun with charts, news stories, levels of funding, etc… to help stock owners to manage their stock portfolio.

So, instead of solely relying on the opinion of a few individual (the murder board), Rise Solutions was able to tap into the wisdom of the company as a whole by looking at the ideas that rise to the top of the Mutual Fun market. Those ideas then get fully funded with real money (called “adventure capital”, cute) to implement the ideas contained in those stocks.

I wish such a tool existed as Open Source for other companies like mine to use.

Maybe something for me to work on…

Go take a shower, will you!

 Creativity  10 Responses »
Mar 082013
 
Credit: http://bit.ly/10hhAP1

Credit: http://bit.ly/10hhAP1

No, this issue is not about the (mostly) undeserved reputation some office dwellers have with poor hygiene. And BTW, the irony of a Frenchman talking about poor hygiene is not lost on me.

This post is about creativity and a very simple way to make you more creative,

In his recent book about creativity (Imagine, how creativity works) Jonah Lehrer introduces us to the work of Joydeep Bhattacharya, a psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London. Bhattacharya uses EEGs to study how people come up with insight. He claims that the brain’s right hemisphere starts producing “alpha waves”. Amazingly, Bhattacharya has found that it’s possible to predict that a person will solve an insight puzzle up to eight seconds before the insight actually arrives and even before the person is even aware of the answer.
He even goes on to say that subjects with insufficient alpha-wave activity are unable to solve insight puzzles such as:

  • A man has married 20 women in a small town. All of the women are still alive and none of them are divorced. The man has broken no laws. Who is the man?
  • Marsha and Marjorie were born on the same day of the same month of the same year to the same mother and the same father, yet they are not twins. How is that possible?

How can you trigger those magic alpha waves, you wonder? They are in fact closely associated with relaxing activities – such as taking the aforementioned warm shower. A relaxed state of mind is crucial for creative thinking because that’s when our brain directs the spotlight of attention inward, toward the right hemisphere, the champion of remote associations.
In contrast, when focusing too much on a problem the attention tends to be directed outward, triggering the analytical mind which actually prevents us from detecting the connections that lead to insights.

For many people, the shower is the most relaxing part of the day. It’s when you are gently massaging your scalp with shampoo (as directed on the bottle), unable to check your email, that you finally hear the quiet voices in the back of your heads whispering to you insights and great new innovative ideas.
Of course, taking a shower is not the only way to trigger that the state of relaxation with its associated alpha waves. Wallace J. Nichols, also a scientist, claims in an article (Get your blue mind on) that the sight and proximity of the ocean and its blue, relaxing vastness will also bring out that dose of relaxation.

Still skeptical? Why don’t you test yourself against these well-known RATS (Remote Associates Test) in various states of relaxation?

Once you have that great insight in the shower remembers Nolan Bushnell’s quote:

Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.

PS: After unsuccessfully trying to hyperlink Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine” book (mentioned earlier) with Amazon, I realized that Amazon pulled the book off its (virtual) shelves. And here’s the reason why.
That said, this post still stands because I’ve experienced the creative powers of a warm shower myself. So, even if some of Lehrer’s quotes were fabricated, I would still like to believe that the rest of the book is not a complete fabrication.
If you want to read the book, it’s still for sale just not with Amazon.

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