I think it mainly has to do with hyperactive thoughts. More random thoughts = more possibilities considered = more creative output = less time on any single thought (focus). Distractibility is just a side effect of this predilection to racing thoughts.
The author, Jonah Lehrer, has an amazing book on behavior economics that I considering a must read for anyone trying to sell anything. It's been incredibly valuable to us at Wistia. It's called "How We Decide".
Jonah always finds incredibly interesting ways to pull apart behavior from a neurological perspective.
I find Lehrer frustrating. He's sort of a psychological Malcolm Gladwell. He's good at framing things in a pat and interesting way, but he's often making a lot of compromises on being thorough and accurate on the way to that narrative.
I would say it's good to read his stuff as a jumping off point, but it may be good to follow that with something more scientific on the subject.
Second that. Check out his Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Great framing, great idea...but in the end, no, Proust was not a neuroscientist, and the same goes for most else Lehrer has to say.
The whole premise of this piece doesn't make sense to me - coffee, whatever else is in Redbull - provide energy, not focus. That energy can be used to focus on something you don't want to focus upon. You also can let your mind wander at the frenetic pace stimulants like coffee, ADHD meds and others facilitate. So back to the beginning - Jonah Lehrer is very good at nicely framing a point that he isn't actually making.
Wow. I can seriously relate to this article. I'm notorious among my friends for "zoning-out", going into deep thought, being easily distracted and giving a delayed response when they ask me something. I thought I might have a problem, but this really gives a new perspective.
I think that perhaps by spending so many hours in front of the computer, my mind is always in this "virtual world" state, where I think A LOT, but only to myself—and this carries over to to the "physical world." I easily distracted—but can focus really hard on one thing at a time, so I don't have issues learning (if I'm paying attention to the class). Don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.
The study results were interesting, but I find them hard to apply in a directed effort towards achievement. I just finished reading The Power of Full Engagement, and I find Loehr and Schwartz provide a more practical, workable model.
Their idea, strongly supported by thousands of case studies, is that to maximize success (whether in academics, tennis, the corporate world, etc.) one must practice deliberate spurts of stress followed by periods of strategic relaxation. It is easier to apply this in practice than the interesting but hardly practical content in the article. For example, for the past few hours, I've been working hard on understanding some algebraic geometry from Hartshorne, but now I'm daydreaming about neuroscience and salsa.
Thus, a perfect creative effort is a fusion of focused dedication interspersed with lackadaisical goofing around.
I am reading The Way We're Working Isn't Working, also by Schwartz, and I would highly recommend it (though you've already read one book by him, so it might be overkill).
In particular note Ravi Vakil's 500+ page book-in-progress on algebraic geometry, as well as a blog -- he is constantly soliciting and incorporating advice from people who are reading the book. (Remind you of any advice you see often on HN?)
I just had a nerdgasm. This is gold. I can be reading one book in one place, instead of having Dummit and Foote, Atiyah and MacDonald, and the more example-laden Geometry of Schemes lying next to me.
Wait, what? The TOC is hyperlinked to the headings in the document? I never knew you could do that in a textbook! Years and years and crappy PDF after crappy scanned PDF of technical books with zero linking (or only external urls!) and I find out someone actually does this?
There's no way they're a teacher. None. You cannot do this in the education system. There's a law against it, or something. Maybe they're on the run, a renegade teacher, like the professor-version of Archibald Tuttle.
Fully aware of LaTeX. Also fully aware a lot of book creators use things like LaTeX and Adobe to build their books and form their footnotes and keep their TOC / index / internal page references accurate.
I'm also painfully aware that tons of books, textbooks particularly frequently, don't use the information they built the book with to build the digital version, so it becomes a glorified scan that you can download and read, and nothing more.
Flow != creativity. A flow state is an immersion in the task at hand, where your self-consciousness melts away and you just get it done. Creativity doesn't necessarily involve that same sort of ego death, and involves dreaming of things, not necessarily accomplishing them.
no it doesn't. 'Flow' works well when you already know what are you going to do, and that particular task is not too easy, but not too hard (something that doesn't require your maximum cognitive effort).
The article is talking about on how to start tacking solving problems. People that are easily distracted seem to come up with more creative solutions. Which makes sense.
Also, the studies cited have a selection bias. They studied very smart college students (at Harvard), which means these kids, even though had attention problems, they were successful enough to get there, which means they are high functioning ADD/ADHD. (they manage to get some productivity out of them. And the extra creativity gives them an edge).
The article also mentions that they didn't measure all those kids with ADD/ADHD that were never able to finish high school, or get into college.
ADD/ADHD can be crippling, but for very smart people that manage it (or find way to become productive), it might be actually be beneficial to their creativity and give them and edge.
One comment that you hear from people that start taking Ritalin due to adult ADD, is that while they are a lot less distract-able and are able to perform and complete a lot more tasks, they feel less creative, and more a bit like robots.
>>ADD/ADHD can be crippling, but for very smart people that manage it (or find way to become productive), it might be actually be beneficial to their creativity and give them and edge.
I am adult that has been recently diagnosed with ADD, and have to say that the comparative problem solving and creativity advantage has been apparent all of my life (not just to me :) ).
>>One comment that you hear from people that start taking Ritalin due to adult ADD, is that while they are a lot less distract-able and are able to perform and complete a lot more tasks, they feel less creative, and more a bit like robots.
I was afraid that this would happen to me, but thankfully that hasn't been my experience. I'm hardly a robot, and really just as prone to distraction. I am, however, better able to modulate my attention. On the drugs, I can choose what I pay attention to so that distractions are less of a problem.
Creativity requires trust. How many employers are willing to trust their employees to get stuff done without concern with the way they get stuff done? It requires you to trust the process which often doesn't have intermediary stages that you can show progress, answers just arise.
This jives with my personal observations of my work.
I'm a very busy guy, but I easily spend 40% of my day not focusing on work. Probably another 20% is walking around talking to the people. To me, "focusing" on random stuff (ie. Hacker News, the newspaper, work-related or personal research) and completing tasks with minimal time is the best way to get things done -- the pressure helps me cut to the essence of whatever I need to do.
Well at least the guy isn't masturbating at work. A coworker of mine did that in front of me one afternoon & the next day I was fired.
I produced a movie about what everyone did with their time in that office. http://BudgetJustified.com
I'm guessing it will come to no surprise that it was the federal government.
"Distract me, i am working" reflects the idea of the article better.
Distraction may not be irritating but bothering someone is always irritating and annoying and leads to stress. But creativity comes from relaxed state (daydreaming etc).
I think "If you can distract me, I'm creative." would be a better title.
Being easily distracted means you have a harder time to get stuff done. To bring it back to another commenter it also means you have a harder time to achieve and maintain Flow.
So in a typical pop-scientist way the writer of the article got the headline completely wrong. You can't make me more creative by distracting me. If I'm creative I'll have a harder time to maintain focus.
I wrote a college paper about ADHD and higher education, largely motivated by my own struggles and aspirations for grad school. The actual research I did for it ended up being pretty interesting, but the actual paper wasn't really that great (IMO, I did get an A for it however)
Anyways, there's a huge lack of ADHD research in adults, and how it affects students in higher education, and virtually no research on how it affects people in the workplace.
There is some interesting research regarding creativity and ADHD. Some of it ends up trying to strengthen/disprove the dopamine hypothesis.
Time spent thinking without distractions, or playing with a ball, sure.
Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though?
Not so much.
Brainwaves slow down when watching TV compared to just sitting staring at the grass. Lolling around Gawker and Reddit isn't so different from watching TV for a lot of people.
Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though? Not so much.
It's not for everyone, but for me, "leisure Internet browsing" (and leisure creation) over the past 15 years has been step 1 of most of my successes.
If I'd been focused on my "work" more, I probably wouldn't have started blogging in 1999 or even known what it was. Blogging has brought me a book deal, a large share of my income, and many other things since then. I probably wouldn't have come across Rails in 2004 and had some early successes there. I wouldn't have been tuned into the great stuff discussed on HN about e-mail newsletters, which I've now turned into a success for myself too. The list is endless.
I try not to spend too long just noodling around the Internet, but I do quite a bit of it because I can see what an investment it is. By keeping an eye on what people are into, what other people are making, and what memes are catching on, I can absorb those ideas and produce catchier things of my own. It saddens me when I meet smart people at meetups who don't spend enough time casually browsing and who have no idea what's "going on" at the moment or what opportunities there are opening up..
Again, this might only be beneficial because I work entirely for myself. If I were working a 9 to 5 in an office, it probably wouldn't make sense.
I work 10 to 6 in an office, and i do the same, wandering on Hacker News, /r/programming or /r/gamedev, arstechnica, Twitter, to too much but just enough. I find that trying to hard to concentrate just leads to bad stuff, so whenever i can't concentrate or get a grasp on a problem, i just go "meh whatever, what's new on Hacker News?", read one article or two, get back to whatever i was doing.
I'm a problem solver, i'm recognized to be one, and i don't know much people who have a problem with me wandering on the internet here and there. And if it's not internet, i take a quick smoke break, helps most of the time, specially in the winter when it's -20 outside (Montreal, gotta love it :p ), slap you right in the face.
That sounds a lot like House MD :D
He seems to solve all of his diagnostical problems when thinking of a different / abstract thing, and approaching problem from a completely different angle. Nice idea, worth experimenting with
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Interesting article. As mentioned above, I'm not sure that just generating ideas is the same as generating good ideas. And when it all boils down to getting things done (GTD), I really have to pay attention. If I'm in a creative mood, and I don't have time schedules looming over my shoulder, then sure, it's okay to let the mind wander.
I'll also mention that I've recently gotten into Pomodoro, and that has really helped me to pay attention. I never would have thought so, but I'm actually able to code and be a lot more efficient in my Internet usage using the technique.
This article encapsulated one of my strengths, the difficulty of focusing exclusively on any one thing. As an individual that has always been somewhat easily distracted, I've learned to take advantage of this by always staying on the lookout for new opportunities each time my attention shifts. My startup idea was born from piecing together many different insights into one new idea.
Reading this article made me really happy that... ooooh, shiny!
For those who are interested, this months scientific American - mind 's cover is about the relationship between day dreaming, creativity and its understanding from a neurological perspective. It is a very good read, unfortunately behind a pay wall online or free at your local Barnes and nobles ;)
> For instance, researchers have found a surprising link between daydreaming and creativity—people who daydream more are also better at generating new ideas.
Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation.
> The scientists measured the success of 60 undergraduates in various fields, from the visual arts to science. They asked the students if they'd ever won a prize at a juried art show or been honored at a science fair.
Art shows and science fairs, obviously the best / only indicators of success.
Man, either the article is terrible or it's shocking that this passes as "research".
One thing that makes entrepreneurs and inventors successful, is their ability to visualize a course of events. I personally think one of the most useful tools in the industrial/manufacturing revolution was the advent of the radio but it's not the technology of the radio that’s significant.
The radio fundamentally changed how people thought. Verity shows and spoken word programs allowed people to close their eyes and visualize an environment inspired by the voice not demanded; this change opened the proverbial “box” of grand visions and ideas. They visualized how to work smarter and productivity became a new form perspiration, the world had evolved yet again.
I don't think people have an attention span problem (normally), I think we have evolved to the point where relevant context to our interests are essential to engagement. We see that in every form of professional life, how is the process different for children? Why do some VC's pass on a group, only for another VC to select them? Why has social communication gone from town squares to computing masterpieces in our pocket?
It all comes back to vision. Entrepreneurs of today, would find themselves in front of the family radio 100 years ago, dreaming of a more productive world and how to accomplish it. We have learned its more effective to visualize and build in bursts, than it is to just stay focused for an arbitrary amount of time. We utilize input from infinite sources that capture our attention, whether they're directly relevant to the subject we are creating, we create flexible work environments surrounded by an eclectic group of people to cultivate inspiration, focused on one task.
When people feel comfortable, essential and free to be individually themselves, you can turn an “attention deficit hyperactive” person into a solar flare focused energy that fuels the world we call business.
48 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 82.0 ms ] threadThe author, Jonah Lehrer, has an amazing book on behavior economics that I considering a must read for anyone trying to sell anything. It's been incredibly valuable to us at Wistia. It's called "How We Decide".
Jonah always finds incredibly interesting ways to pull apart behavior from a neurological perspective.
http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/05472479...
I would say it's good to read his stuff as a jumping off point, but it may be good to follow that with something more scientific on the subject.
The whole premise of this piece doesn't make sense to me - coffee, whatever else is in Redbull - provide energy, not focus. That energy can be used to focus on something you don't want to focus upon. You also can let your mind wander at the frenetic pace stimulants like coffee, ADHD meds and others facilitate. So back to the beginning - Jonah Lehrer is very good at nicely framing a point that he isn't actually making.
I think that perhaps by spending so many hours in front of the computer, my mind is always in this "virtual world" state, where I think A LOT, but only to myself—and this carries over to to the "physical world." I easily distracted—but can focus really hard on one thing at a time, so I don't have issues learning (if I'm paying attention to the class). Don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.
Their idea, strongly supported by thousands of case studies, is that to maximize success (whether in academics, tennis, the corporate world, etc.) one must practice deliberate spurts of stress followed by periods of strategic relaxation. It is easier to apply this in practice than the interesting but hardly practical content in the article. For example, for the past few hours, I've been working hard on understanding some algebraic geometry from Hartshorne, but now I'm daydreaming about neuroscience and salsa.
Thus, a perfect creative effort is a fusion of focused dedication interspersed with lackadaisical goofing around.
http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/216blog/
In particular note Ravi Vakil's 500+ page book-in-progress on algebraic geometry, as well as a blog -- he is constantly soliciting and incorporating advice from people who are reading the book. (Remind you of any advice you see often on HN?)
Thank you.
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/2446/best-algebraic-geomet... http://mathoverflow.net/questions/3041/the-importance-of-ega...
There's no way they're a teacher. None. You cannot do this in the education system. There's a law against it, or something. Maybe they're on the run, a renegade teacher, like the professor-version of Archibald Tuttle.
Fully aware of LaTeX. Also fully aware a lot of book creators use things like LaTeX and Adobe to build their books and form their footnotes and keep their TOC / index / internal page references accurate.
I'm also painfully aware that tons of books, textbooks particularly frequently, don't use the information they built the book with to build the digital version, so it becomes a glorified scan that you can download and read, and nothing more.
I tend to be more creative when I'm letting myself drift, but I need to focus in order to execute. As with most things, balance is the key.
The article is talking about on how to start tacking solving problems. People that are easily distracted seem to come up with more creative solutions. Which makes sense.
Also, the studies cited have a selection bias. They studied very smart college students (at Harvard), which means these kids, even though had attention problems, they were successful enough to get there, which means they are high functioning ADD/ADHD. (they manage to get some productivity out of them. And the extra creativity gives them an edge).
The article also mentions that they didn't measure all those kids with ADD/ADHD that were never able to finish high school, or get into college.
ADD/ADHD can be crippling, but for very smart people that manage it (or find way to become productive), it might be actually be beneficial to their creativity and give them and edge.
One comment that you hear from people that start taking Ritalin due to adult ADD, is that while they are a lot less distract-able and are able to perform and complete a lot more tasks, they feel less creative, and more a bit like robots.
I am adult that has been recently diagnosed with ADD, and have to say that the comparative problem solving and creativity advantage has been apparent all of my life (not just to me :) ).
>>One comment that you hear from people that start taking Ritalin due to adult ADD, is that while they are a lot less distract-able and are able to perform and complete a lot more tasks, they feel less creative, and more a bit like robots.
I was afraid that this would happen to me, but thankfully that hasn't been my experience. I'm hardly a robot, and really just as prone to distraction. I am, however, better able to modulate my attention. On the drugs, I can choose what I pay attention to so that distractions are less of a problem.
I'm a very busy guy, but I easily spend 40% of my day not focusing on work. Probably another 20% is walking around talking to the people. To me, "focusing" on random stuff (ie. Hacker News, the newspaper, work-related or personal research) and completing tasks with minimal time is the best way to get things done -- the pressure helps me cut to the essence of whatever I need to do.
"Distract me, i am working" reflects the idea of the article better.
Distraction may not be irritating but bothering someone is always irritating and annoying and leads to stress. But creativity comes from relaxed state (daydreaming etc).
Being easily distracted means you have a harder time to get stuff done. To bring it back to another commenter it also means you have a harder time to achieve and maintain Flow.
So in a typical pop-scientist way the writer of the article got the headline completely wrong. You can't make me more creative by distracting me. If I'm creative I'll have a harder time to maintain focus.
Anyways, there's a huge lack of ADHD research in adults, and how it affects students in higher education, and virtually no research on how it affects people in the workplace.
There is some interesting research regarding creativity and ADHD. Some of it ends up trying to strengthen/disprove the dopamine hypothesis.
Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though? Not so much.
Brainwaves slow down when watching TV compared to just sitting staring at the grass. Lolling around Gawker and Reddit isn't so different from watching TV for a lot of people.
It's not for everyone, but for me, "leisure Internet browsing" (and leisure creation) over the past 15 years has been step 1 of most of my successes.
If I'd been focused on my "work" more, I probably wouldn't have started blogging in 1999 or even known what it was. Blogging has brought me a book deal, a large share of my income, and many other things since then. I probably wouldn't have come across Rails in 2004 and had some early successes there. I wouldn't have been tuned into the great stuff discussed on HN about e-mail newsletters, which I've now turned into a success for myself too. The list is endless.
I try not to spend too long just noodling around the Internet, but I do quite a bit of it because I can see what an investment it is. By keeping an eye on what people are into, what other people are making, and what memes are catching on, I can absorb those ideas and produce catchier things of my own. It saddens me when I meet smart people at meetups who don't spend enough time casually browsing and who have no idea what's "going on" at the moment or what opportunities there are opening up..
Again, this might only be beneficial because I work entirely for myself. If I were working a 9 to 5 in an office, it probably wouldn't make sense.
I'm a problem solver, i'm recognized to be one, and i don't know much people who have a problem with me wandering on the internet here and there. And if it's not internet, i take a quick smoke break, helps most of the time, specially in the winter when it's -20 outside (Montreal, gotta love it :p ), slap you right in the face.
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It also connects to the old saying "La nuit porte conseil" - aka "the night brings council" - or "best to sleep on it".
I'll also mention that I've recently gotten into Pomodoro, and that has really helped me to pay attention. I never would have thought so, but I'm actually able to code and be a lot more efficient in my Internet usage using the technique.
Reading this article made me really happy that... ooooh, shiny!
Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation.
> The scientists measured the success of 60 undergraduates in various fields, from the visual arts to science. They asked the students if they'd ever won a prize at a juried art show or been honored at a science fair.
Art shows and science fairs, obviously the best / only indicators of success.
Man, either the article is terrible or it's shocking that this passes as "research".
The radio fundamentally changed how people thought. Verity shows and spoken word programs allowed people to close their eyes and visualize an environment inspired by the voice not demanded; this change opened the proverbial “box” of grand visions and ideas. They visualized how to work smarter and productivity became a new form perspiration, the world had evolved yet again.
I don't think people have an attention span problem (normally), I think we have evolved to the point where relevant context to our interests are essential to engagement. We see that in every form of professional life, how is the process different for children? Why do some VC's pass on a group, only for another VC to select them? Why has social communication gone from town squares to computing masterpieces in our pocket?
It all comes back to vision. Entrepreneurs of today, would find themselves in front of the family radio 100 years ago, dreaming of a more productive world and how to accomplish it. We have learned its more effective to visualize and build in bursts, than it is to just stay focused for an arbitrary amount of time. We utilize input from infinite sources that capture our attention, whether they're directly relevant to the subject we are creating, we create flexible work environments surrounded by an eclectic group of people to cultivate inspiration, focused on one task.
When people feel comfortable, essential and free to be individually themselves, you can turn an “attention deficit hyperactive” person into a solar flare focused energy that fuels the world we call business.