Does meditation support better design outcomes?

Do you struggle with too many distractions which keep you from getting into that state of creative flow? Do you get pulled away on tangents and down rabbit holes while you are working and suddenly realize you have wasted time working on things that don’t matter? Do you sometimes struggle to open your mind to creative possibilities or to reframe the problem you are trying to solve?

As designers I think we have all struggled at times with focus, distractions, and diversions. Life and work are busy places and its hard to find time and space to concentrate. When we do get into creative flow, we can sometimes shift off course and next thing you know we have spent all sorts of time solving design problems that didn’t really need to be solved.

Recently I have noticed that my journey and practice in meditation and mindfulness is having a real positive impact on my work and so I wanted to write about it and share some of my learning.

Starting my practice

My interest in mindfulness and meditation started about two years ago and really emerged as a way to manage the stress of a busy career and a busy household (I have three kids. Ill leave it at that :)).

I had been aware of mindfulness techniques since I was a kid. I remember having a cassette tape from my parents which was a guided meditation and I sometimes listening to it in order to fall asleep as a teen. My impression of it was always very sort of cosmic or spiritual and just a little “out there” which didn’t really resonate with me, so I was really pleased to get introduced to an app on my phone called Headspace which takes a very pragmatic approach to mindfulness and for me it was a great way to re-introduce myself to a practice of calming the mind.

I have been practicing on and off for over two years now and have logged hundreds of sessions. Currently I incorporate meditation as part of my morning routine where I get up early to do 30 minutes of Yoga, 15 or 20 minutes of meditation and 30 minutes of mindful work like reading or writing.

So what have the benefits been?

Meditation and mindfulness is all about focus. We focus our mind on something simple like the breath, and we spend our meditation time learning to deal with the all the distractions that naturally occur. Its about being able to notice when the mind wonders and then being able to effortlessly bring it back to the area of focus. Its not about suppressing distractions but rather embracing the fact that they will occur and having an ability to acknowledge them, usher them out and get back to the focus. Sounds simple, but its pretty hard!

In the beginning I would sometimes waste most of a 20 minute session lost in thought and it would take 5 or 10 minutes sometimes to recognize that I had been distracted. But as I practice more and more I am now able to recognize the distractions in as little as a few seconds and get myself back on track.

This ability to focus and to recognize distraction can be really important to a designer.

Getting into a state of flow

When you are able to efficiently deal with distraction it allows us to more easily get to that place of flow. As creatives, we all know what its like when we get completely consumed by our work. We get sucked in and suddenly hours have passed. This is called Flow, and it can be hard to achieve but once we in it, its like catching a wave. Dealing with those distractions and allowing your mind to let them go will help in getting into that state of flow.

Avoiding design diversions

Designers are natural problem finders and problem solvers. We LOVE making things better and we often have a natural tendency to stumble upon things in our work that divert us away from what should be our primary focus.

How many times have you been working on something only to realize that you just spend 2 hours solving some design problem that was not even associated with your primary objective.

The ability to recognize these diversions… accept them… then dismiss them is just like recognizing distracting thoughts and it allows us to stay on task by focussing 100% of our design energy on the problem we should be solving rather than bouncing between a number of problems that are not important right now.

Opening the mind to creative opportunity

I think one of the hardest things for designers and creatives to do, is to “be creative on demand”. It’s not always easy to just turn it on which is why we often work strange hours because when creativity comes out to play we must make the most of it.

I have learned though that meditation and mindfulness can help prepare us to be creative. Much like professional athletes who have very strict rituals they follow before they need to compete, creative professionals can establish exercises and rituals that open themselves up to being creative in the moment.

For me its a couple things:

My goto creative routine has become the morning. As I mentioned earlier, I have a routine that I try to follow, and I notice that its in this time in the morning that my most creative thinking occurs. Its as if the yoga and meditation set the stage for a broadening of the mind and when its followed up by time spent reading or writing I suddenly find myself getting inspired, solving lingering problems or looking at things in a new or interesting way. I often save certain tasks for this time in the morning so that I can benefit from this state of mind.

The other thing I have been doing recently is using mindfulness to set the intention of what I need to do. So if I have only 30 minutes between meetings and I need to focus on something or solve a hard problem then I take simply 2 or 3 minutes to calm my mind, focus on the breath by counting or by a technique called box breathing. I then set a clear intention in my mind of what I want to achieve and then I set about working on it. If in the process of working I notice that I’m veering from my intention, then I can bring myself back to the task. This can be very effective and not only keeps you focussed on the task but also creates increased opportunity for creative thought.

Its definitely worth a try

I know that some people still see meditation is something that might be a little odd, but I do believe that just like exercising our bodies to be healthy that we can also exercise our minds. The techniques of meditation and mindfulness do just that by helping us understand focus and patience and that focus can be applied to all aspects of our day to day — including how we do our creative work.