Your Best Ideas Come When You're Least Productive
We all have our favorite times to power through work; some of us are up at the crack of dawn toiling away, while others feel more productive when the sun's setting. But a new study suggests that out best ideas actually come to us when we're not at our best.
How is it that we always get the best ideas when we're least productive? Does that sort of thing make you wonder? Researchers are studying how innovation and creativity varies with circadian rhythms, the natural patterns that make you a morning person or an evening sort.
Studies have shown that we perform our best or get most of them done during peak times in our circadian rhythms when we're most alert. A new study by Mareike Wieth and Rose Zacks reveal that during the lulls in productivity that we're easily distracted, and that those distractions can contribute to creativity.
The study asked participants a mixture of analytic and insight questions. The analytic ones were laborious, tedious working to establish an answer, and the insight questions required a flash of inspiration to crack. The insight questions were completed more effectively when participants were stuck in a circadian rhythm rut.
Being less focus on a task makes you more open to distraction, and in turn lets you explore other new ideas. So with this in mind, use this to your advantage! [Thinking and Reasoning via Scientific American; Image: Ben Chau]