Why Scouting Makes Your Ideas Come *Alive!* //

Have you ever heard that little saying that goes something like “ Hands up in the air if you get ideas in the shower?” ? Well, I am pretty sure you have not because technically it doesn’t go like that, but Mihaly Csikszentmihaly in his book Flow said something very similar… ish.

Ok, what he really said was — “incubation” [ideas churn around below the threshold of subconscious] — and putting that into a much more comprehensible Anglais, it basically means that we should dedicate a time of the day in being idle so our ideas can resolve themselves in the meantime.

Sorry, but this is not really a surprise. You see, there are a whole lot of creatives who dedicate time to take a walk, a hike, sip some coffee, exercise (my favourite being Casey Neistat doing pull-ups in between 90 mins of work), do some Yoga or meditation, etc etc. So we’re supposed to go walk our Dog or wash the dishes while we wait our subconscious to get busy? YES YOU ARE. Now go walk your dog while you’re at it.

After reading this post of course … don’t go away :(

Anyways, if you really think about it, for any other person this seems like lazy aptitudes to take, since you are not hustlin’, but for Csikszentmihaly these are not frivolous aptitudes since our conscious mind has less to do, there is a lot more space for it to process and work thoughts we have had recently, and finding new ideas to report and get back to us. This Incubation time spent where our minds can wander endlessly doing automated tasks, accelerates creativity. I know at first in sounds weird, but then again why do you expect creativity to be rational and logic hah?

Your subconscious is always working in the background, making connections and insights for you, so this is where scouting comes in place. Scouting is a very broad and applicable word to describe certain actions, so if you want to get ideas in the shower or come with a clearer mind after your run, you can do these things.

  • Take a walk and scout a place. Museum, grass field, mall, a long drive. This will let your mind interact with shapes, figures, colours and ideas; ergo helping your subconscious assimilate these things into building solutions.
  • Scout the way the Greats did it. You can re-read the biography, or workflows of your heroes and see how they came up with those ideas. Inspire yourself by taking a look of what they were before. You’d be surprise to know that the Wright brothers studied birds and how they flew while trying to come up with a solution for the aeroplane.
  • Play an instrument in between. It’ll get you pumped.
  • Do some exercise, meditation or Yoga. It’s science that our brains function better with motion. This kinda makes sense, evolutionary speaking: when did we have our sharpest wits a thousand years back? Most probably while we were being chased by a 400 pound sharp-clawed tiger. Trust me that our brains work wonder on those ‘oh shit’ moments and when we are in motion.
  • Take a shower. This being said, yes it works, plus it’s a relative way to say how your mind needs to be at rest (while it’s working). Taking a break so you can look up on your phone doesn’t really work. You need a place or activity that it will let your mind wander. Taking a shower is an ideal place.

After all of this, I guess I have somehow managed to explain easily how incubation works and how scouting makes great wonders into coming up with ideas and solutions. Try it out!

If you came up with something good after letting me blabber for a while and you’d like to leave your support, you can follow me in:

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