What is deep work?

Why deep work matters

The three laws of deep work

Deep work isn’t just about work

The underrated skill of daydreaming

The hidden value of exploration, part I

The hidden value of exploration, part II

Why you need to laugh more, part I

Why you need to laugh more, part II

Why you need to take play more seriously

What is deep work

When doctors Scott Barry Kaufman and Rebecca McMillan together wrote a very nicely titled paper called Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming, and in so doing discovered how allowing the mind to wander could actually aid what they termed "creative incubation".

Well, it sparked the direction of study through which Kaufman, in particular, would come to discover the very many powerful benefits involved in allowing the mind to switch off from whatever immersive task or problem that it might be engaged with.

Daydreaming, he discovered actually involves a highly engaged brain state that mimics a lot of the processes involved in imagination and creativity, thereby priming the mind to grasp creative insights.

You remember our friend Hermann von Helmholtz, the 19th-Century physicist who cited his nature walks as being the key to his success? So it turns out it wasn't just the mental and physical renewal of those walks that were rendering his creative insights.

In short, allowing his mind to wander away from the task at hand after having thoroughly immersed himself in it afforded his thoughts the opportunity to peruse of a different context and subconsciously invite them to, in Kaufman's words, "incubate". See Von Helmholtz was basically jumpstarting his own creativity, pretty much without even thinking about it.

It's the brain’s way of exiting the room in order to reenter through another door in order to get a different, alternative angle or perspective on things. Which is why, going for walks, or even allowing your mind to be occupied by fun discursive tasks like our FLOWN Quests, for example, can actually be such an incredibly valuable key.

It triggers our imaginations to fire in new ways. And so that logistical knot or problem that you've been trying to solve, that product or design that you've been trying to generate fresh ideas and insights for, that creative block that you might have hit, actually walking away from the desk, allowing yourself not to think about them for a while and daydreaming instead or allowing yourself to do these fun discursive tasks.

These can be important keys to enabling you to actually render insights that you would not be able to arrive at any other way. See, daydreaming doesn't just allow our cognitive capacities to rest and refresh, it actually enhances them. But the more important question really is: why?

How does this work, exactly? And most importantly, how can we make it work for us?

The underrated skill of daydreaming

What Next?