WALKING IS A GOOD SOURCE FOR IDEAS AND CREATIVITY
We are amazed at how many creative people in the world take
walking seriously.
Biographer Walter Isaacson says that walking was Steve
Jobs’s preferred way to have a serious conversation.
Paulo Coelho talks repeatedly in his books about his habit of taking a 2
hour walk every morning.
Dan Pallotta says that he
routinely uses his morning walks to generate ideas for his business.
He gives an
example of how he rehearsed his famous 2013 TED talk entirely on his morning walks over
the course of about two months.
"The first mile of my walk is just a racket
of competing voices of judgment and to-do lists. But after about two miles, no
matter how low my mood may have been at the outset, those voices settle down."
“There are particular spots on my walks at which the ideas
begin popping into my head, as if dropping from a magic tree …Many refinements in essential phrases or visuals for my TED talk
came to me at that spot.”
Henry David Thoreau famously said, “Methinks that the moment
my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
Mason Currey, the
author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work gives plenty of examples
of great composers and artists who routinely took daily strolls as way of keeping
their ideas flowing.
It is said that Beethoven went for a walk after lunch every
day, and he always carried a pencil and a couple of sheets of paper in his
pocket, to record chance musical thoughts.
Gustav Mahler followed much the same routine—he would take a
three- or four-hour walk after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his
notebook.
Benjamin Britten said that his
afternoon walks were "where I plan out what I’m going to write in the next
period at my desk."
A 2013 study by cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato from
Leiden University found that people who go for a walk or ride a bike four times
a week are able to think more creatively than people who lead a sedentary life.
There. Now you know.
Most of us view walking as tedious and monotonous. Some of
us think it is not even worth being called an exercise. And certainly, very few
of us see it as a way of generating ideas.
It is unfortunate that our culture looks down on walking as a poor man's thing, or a thing for the old, retired and infirm. Or at worst, a luxury we have no time for.
But if the examples cited above are anything to go by, we are wrong
to think of walking only as a way to calm the mind or as a source of exercise,
or as a leisurely luxury.
We have been taught to think that serious work only happens on our
desks. But in a very real sense, walking can be work, and work can be done
while walking.
In fact, walking can dramatically increase productivity.
But it’s work. There is a system to it. Those ideas don’t just
come unless you are engaged with the issue at hand.
If you take a walk with
music blaring in your ears, the chances are that those good ideas will stay
buried or just out of reach.
Walking is also a great way to have professional
heart-to-heart talks. Dan Pallotta says that he often takes employees on walks to talk
things out.
“The movement makes the conversation less stiff and more authentic,
more responsible, even”.
We could go on and on, but we believe you have got the idea:
If you're trying to generate creative ideas at work or in your business, you
should really consider taking a routine walk more often.
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