Creative impulses can be planned

My regular readers already guess that now I will saddle my favorite skate: I tirelessly urge everyone to plan their lives. In my opinion, this approach justifies itself almost always. But the spontaneity, for which some so passionately advocate, is clearly overestimated. It seems to me that those who strive to be a «truly spontaneous person» are best avoided. They will obviously destroy everything that you jointly planned.

I insist on this, even though in my current life there is the most virtuoso destroyer of plans — a baby of six months old. After all, the point of the plan is not at all to stick to it fanatically. It is needed so that, having completed one thing, you are not lost in thought about what to do next.

The benefits of planning are especially evident when unpredictable events occur and require your attention. Once the storm subsides, you will probably be too confused to wisely choose your next course of action. And this is where your plan will come in handy. Remember the catchy Latin expression carpe diem — «live in the moment»? I would replace it with carpe horarium — «live on schedule.»

My point is proven by a recent study conducted at the Columbia Business School. Two groups of participants were asked to complete two creative tasks within a certain time. In the first group, participants could switch from one task to another whenever they wished, in the second — at strictly defined intervals. As a result, the second group performed better in all respects.

How can this be explained? According to the authors, here’s the thing. It can be difficult for all of us to catch the moment when cognitive fixation occurs in our mental activity, that is, we lose the ability to think outside the box and turn off the beaten track. We usually don’t notice it right away.

“Participants who didn’t stick to the schedule of switching from one task to another were more likely to repeat themselves, their “new” ideas were very similar to what they came up with at the beginning,” the authors of the study note. Takeaway: If you’re not taking a break from work because you’re feeling overwhelmed, keep in mind that the feeling may be false.

Note that in this experiment, a break did not mean stopping work, but switching to another task. That is, a change of activity seems to be as effective as rest — the main thing is that everything goes on schedule.

What practical conclusions can be drawn from this? When you’re working on tasks that require creativity, scheduling breaks consciously will help you maintain a fresh perspective. It is best to arrange breaks at regular intervals.

To be on the safe side, you can set a timer. When you hear the signal, immediately switch to some other business: look through your accounts, check your mailbox, clean up your desktop. Then get back to work. And don’t skip lunch. Without regular breaks, you will start to slip. Check for yourself — will you be able to come up with something qualitatively new in this mode?

Most importantly, get rid of the guilt of interrupting work. Especially when you feel stuck and can’t move forward. Taking a break is actually the best thing to do in this situation.

These studies can be interpreted even more broadly. Being inside the situation, it is difficult to adequately assess your condition and make sound decisions. When we get angry over a minor issue, such as someone trying to skip the line somewhere, we don’t realize that our reaction is disproportionate to what happened.

When we feel alone, we often withdraw even more into ourselves when we should be moving in the opposite direction. When we lack motivation, we don’t see that the best way to get it is not to procrastinate, but to finally do what we are avoiding. The examples go on.

The secret is not to blindly obey your momentary thoughts and feelings, but learn to anticipate them. This is where planning comes in — it forces us to do what we need to do, whether we want it now or not. And for that reason alone, sticking to a schedule is a good idea.