Daydream it to Achieve it

Many of us have taken on a bit of modern cultural baggage in navigating our lives. From the moment we start school, we're tasked with staying focused, remaining productive and using our time wisely.

That's not to say that these aren't important or admirable traits, but what happens when our mind wanders off track in the middle of performing a task? We often guilt ourselves into snapping back to the present and returning our noses to grindstone for fear of being seen as unfocused or prone to procrastination or, worst of all, just plain lazy.

However, there is a healthy and, in fact, productivity-boosting payoff to allowing ourselves to indulge in thoughts of imagined funerals or anything else on Scrubs. Jonah Lehrer, writing in The Boston Globe, tells us that daydreaming has led to eureka moments that have changed the world for the better and can help us in our professional and social lives. Furthermore, it's probably best not to fight it, as scientific evidence mounts that it just may be our brain's default setting to begin with.

Lapsing into daydream engages a set of connected brain functions called the default network, and it is commonly triggered when we're performing basic tasks that do not require a lot of heavy concentration. While it may seem to others, or even to ourselves, that we've gone off into la-la land, there's actually a slew of brain activity going on.

Where we can harness these moments to do good is to train ourselves to become increasingly aware of these lapses to allow ourselves to be more attentive to them as they happen. Direct awareness of our daydreaming permits training our inner ear to listen for the aha! moments that may arise to assist us in creatively solving challenges in our lives or in conjuring up all manner of novel and wonderful things.

Your brain is your friend, so try to find time to make a play date with it on a regular basis. By letting it off the leash while keeping an eye on where it goes, you may find a true ally in infusing a boost of applied creativity to enhance every aspect of your life.

Photo by Alyssa L. Miller via Flickr.