Clive Thompson on Why Idling Mind Is Mother of Invention | Magazine - The Diigo Meta page

• 29 Oct 09
  

  molly kearney

  thoughts

  • daydreaming can actually be useful — because if it were such a bad thing, it’s unlikely that we’d do it so often
  • your idling mind is likely doing deeply creative work, tackling your hairiest long-term tasks — projects you’ve been trying to address for months, the arc of your career, the state of your marriage
  • 2 more annotations...
  • • How about designing software that optimizes daydreaming?
    • If your boss is trying to force you to focus on PowerPoint and Word documents, you might gravitate to mentally discursive, floaty experiences — the idle surfing of Facebook updates, Wikipedia entries, YouTube videos, casual games like Bejeweled. Maybe these things aren’t so much time sucks as desperate attempts by our brains to decouple from the go-go-go machine and head off on its own.
• 26 Oct 09
  

  Mike Cane

  Daydreaming isn’t just the mind’s way of processing information, though. Other scans have found that the wandering mind also utilizes the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that’s involved in problem-solving. The upshot, says Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara who is studying this area, is that your idling mind is likely doing deeply creative work, tackling your hairiest long-term tasks — projects you’ve been trying to address for months, the arc of your career, the state of your marriage. “Mind-wandering is actually a very involved task,” Schooler says. “You leave the here and now and focus on more remote concerns that nevertheless might be more important. We’ve been focusing on the downside of this, but we need to think about the upside.”

• 21 Oct 09
  

  Jeffrey Irvine

  Workplace focus attention distraction Multitasking story leads Starred

• 

  Driessen Samuel

  innovation creativity ideamanagement

  • But what if we’re wrong about daydreaming? What if it’s crucial to solving problems in our personal lives and at work?

    
    

    Brain scientists are beginning to suspect that it is. And if they’re right, we might need to rethink the way we work — perhaps even develop tools that actually encourage mental drift.

  • A 2007 study by Michael Kane of the University of North Carolina found that our minds drift away from our tasks fully one-third of the time
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  • • long-term memories — become busier. So when you float off into a reverie, you’re actually doing important data-storage work
    • Other scans have found that the wandering mind also utilizes the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that’s involved in problem-solving.
    • ndeed, Schooler suspects that research like his explains why so many “aha” moments occur when we’re drifting — like Archimedes in the tub.
    • How about designing software that optimizes daydreaming?
    • Granted, most scientists think that if you really want to let your mind roam, you need to engage in a nondemanding task, like going for a three-hour walk.
    • Most jobs don’t allow that, of course. That’s why I’ve begun to think that the “social” Internet has become a rough substitute.
• 20 Oct 09
  

  sergioaugusto Pinto

  Mind

• 

  Mihir Damniwala

  This could really be true.

  Idling mind brain use invention thoughts day dream

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