It always seems to happen at the very last minute. Just as I’m about to head off to bed, suddenly out of nowhere, I’m struck with a compelling idea or vision that ends up filling my mind, keeping me up for another hour (or two) into the night.
Yes but, sleep is so overrated.
Everyone at one time or another has had that killer idea ‘pop’ into their head, sometimes at the most inopportune moment when, let’s say, a deadline is looming.
What do do? Rework your previous ideas for the killer solution that just entered your head?
Do you really have enough time to fully articulate or execute this late blooming idea? Perhaps you should stick with the other ideas —the result of a full week of research and ideation that have been circling around in your head. In any case it’s decision time.
Every account or project manager, designer or creative, supervisor or developer—I don’t care what your job function is—can relate to the scenario mentioned above. Creative solutions to vague or complex problems know not the artificial boundaries set forth by deadlines or the quaint 9 to 5 work day. Inviting procrastination as a way to improve the quality of our ideas may sound absurd, but it’s actually a very powerful technique.
When you’re rushing to a solution, your mind will jump to the easiest and most familiar path. But when you allow yourself to just look out the window for 10 minutes – and ponder – your brain will start working in a more creative way.
—Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance and author of Making Ideas Happen
I tend to think most creative people openly embrace distractions and tangent idea thinking techniques (procrastination perhaps dubiously included) that many of our left-brain oriented colleagues consider a waste of time, energy and resources.
I recall past projects in which I’ve not rushed into pursuing one creative solution or singular design direction, but rather suspended the urge to go down an easily defined path. In these instances I took greater than normally allocated amounts of time to explore adjacencies and alternatives to the seemingly obvious or expected result. In these instances the results were fantastic.
This isn’t advocating laziness or that delaying the formation of work deliverables is something of an excuse to avoid making decisive choices towards getting things done in a timely fashion. Not at all. Deadlines need to be honoured; constraints followed to the letter (sometimes). The challenge lies with adding value where ever possible without infringing upon deadline, budget and so forth. If that means staying up late or putting in a few extra hours here and there to achieve a superior result, I say do it.
Don Draper once said: “The best idea always wins and you know it when you see it and then it happens”. Yes, and great ideas need time to grow, room to be manipulated, mashed-up, delayed or slept on before proceeding or passing judgement upon.
If you accept the idea that, in a creative context, process is more important than outcome then you will no doubt see the value in ideation techniques emphasizing sustained, critical exploration over making snap judgements (Gladwell’s Blink comes to mind) as a viable way to solve problems.
If procrastination works for you (and it does for me on occasion), include it in your creative arsenal. Feel good about exploiting it on a regular basis to the betterment of your ideas if in fact ideas are your business.