Does Procrastination Make Us Better Creatives?

It’s no secret to everyone that time is a currency we can trade for something else.?

From an early age, we might have been taught this transaction with pocket money. Mowing the lawn, cleaning the car or walking the neighbour’s dog, many of us happily exchanged a few hours for some coins.

We also know that time can be traded for energy. In fact, we do it every day when we sleep. We also do it when we practice activities that revitalise us, like a hobby, a walk in the forest or even meeting with a good friend. The time we invest transforms into a source of power and we feel better after than before.

These two exchanges are the ones that always quickly come to mind - but there are other currencies we can buy with our time. One of them is creativity - but there is a caveat.

After one of my keynotes, an audience member came to me and told me: “Lison, I understand from your presentation that overthinking can make our thinking worse for problem-solving and creativity - but for me, that’s really not the case”.

That was confronting.?

I was confident in the results of my research and what the scientific literature had to say about overthinking and creativity. So part of me was internally thinking this was not possible. Yet I was curious, so I asked him to explain a bit more about his situation.

Turns out, when this person is facing a complex problem, he likes to think of all the ways he could solve it and in his mind, he tries to imagine how each of his solutions would play out.?

“That’s like brainstorming. You’re using your divergent thinking there”. Taking a step back from the issue and looking at different solutions, grabbing remote ideas and exploring if they could help - that’s divergent thinking.

“But, when do you stop? When do you try your ideas?”?

And that is where the line turns blurry. When have we thought enough about this? When is it time to test our assumptions? And often, we are blocked, unsure where to begin. Which idea should I try??

The concept of “test” in itself is often overlooked.

Testing implies that we could fail. That we could have a negative result. That our solution could not work for this specific problem. And this is uncomfortable.

So instead of “testing”, we keep on “thinking” (and usually start overdoing it). We try to find out what is the best idea we had, the one that will most certainly work, the one that will provide us with the most results.

And nothing gets tested. Nothing gets done. No solution is found. This is a form of procrastination, hiding behind some mental reflections.?

And this time we invest will not turn into creativity; it will not help us problem-solve - because we miss an essential component. Truly creative people expand their thinking and their ability to find new solutions by trialling new activities.?

They think and they do.

To improve his painting skills, Da Vinci learned and experimented with lights and optics, translating his scientific inquiry into artistic innovation. He also studied anatomy, dissecting about 30 corpses during his lifetime, to understand how muscles and bones work together and better reflect this in his art.

Many of Da Vinci’s peers thought he was procrastinating, wasting his talent on these unusual activities - when in fact, he was trading his time to foster his creative genius. He was exploring new ideas, testing them and embedding the working ones in his work.

For our time to be traded effectively for creativity, we need to think and do.

And, too often, we only think (over and over). I observe this issue happening all the time in teams when they have to make an important decision. Facing the fear of making a mistake (or a suboptimal choice), they keep spending time “thinking” (to look for more solutions or do more analysis) - hoping to have a “genius” moment.?

But it doesn’t work this way. More time doesn’t always equate to more creativity.?

Thinking about new concepts creates guesses - what could work. Testing them will reveal insights. It shows what works and what doesn’t. It removes uncertainty and gives us experience we can leverage to be creative.

So, if we want to trade our time for creativity, to be better problem-solvers - we must think and do.

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To your success,

Lison

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How Can I Help ??

• Drop me a line to have a chat about executive coaching, workshops, keynote: [email protected]
• With my first book Act Before You overThink learn how to make better decisions faster and liberate your mind from the constant chatter that hinders your potential. Get it here .