Most of Your Time On Projects Should Be Spent on Idea Incubation

I have been working on a big project. Ideas were slow to come. You can’t force ideas, though, they come when they’re ready.

It was on this breakwater, scrambling over the rocks, that ideas started to flow. I had to take out my iPhone and start taking voice memos. All at once, a flood of ideas. The block was gone.

You may have had these sorts of breakthroughs. They don’t happen at desks. You can rarely sit down and force an idea out. Go for a walk though, or play with your kids, or play some Angry Birds- take your conscious mind off your creative project, and put it on something else, and that’s when the ideas will start to flow.

So I have learned this: idea execution isn’t the long part. Idea incubation is. Start with an idea, then set it aside. Throw some ideas down in a Google Doc. Leave the Doc open for a few days. Set it aside. Come back to it. Repeat. Go about your daily work.

The unconscious mind does its work — knitting together connections, synthesizing, doing its secret and murky work. Thematic unity emerges.

If it’s procrastination, it’s creative procrastination. If you made it to the end of this piece, you should probably step away from your computer, and go for a walk. You may “break through” — — — -