Can Slowing Down Help You Be More Creative?

Despite being a self-described ‘pre-crastinator, psychologist Adam Grant says those who slow down — even procrastinate — tend to be more creative, original thinkers.

About Adam Grant

Adam Grant is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a New York Times writer on work and psychology. Previously, he was a record-setting advertising director, a junior Olympic springboard diver, and a professional magician. Grant is the author of Originals, which explores how individuals champion new ideas.

Richard Rohr Meditation: The Story that Defines Us

The first book of the Bible, Genesis, is not the Bible’s oldest book. Genesis’ two accounts of creation were compiled in their present form as late as 500 BC. During this period, the Jews were likely in exile in Babylon, where they were exposed to multiple creation stories.

Two excellent teacher friends of mine, Walter Wink (1935-2012) and Rob Bell (b. 1970), both describe one of the most popular stories of that time, the Babylonian Enuma Elish. It describes creation happening after a battle between two gods. The male god kills the female god, then tears her body apart and uses half of her to create the heavens and half to create the earth.

Both teachers point out that the driving engine of this story is violence, carnage, and destruction. So, the exiled Jews decided to write down their own oral tradition, surely to stay cohesive as a tribe among all the competing influences from Babylonians and others. In the Judeo-Christian story of Genesis 1, God—who is “Creator” in verse 1, “Spirit” in verse 2, and “Word” in verse 3 (foretastes of what we would eventually call Trinity)—creates from an overflowing abundance of love, joy, and creativity. Humanity’s core question about our origins is whether the engine of creation is violence and destruction or overflowing love, joy, and creativity.

Is our starting point love and abundance or is it fear and hatred? How we begin is invariably how we end and how we proceed.

Hidden Brain: Life, Interrupted

David Brooks, the columnist, and I might be paraphrasing here, but basically he pointed out this observation that great, creative thinkers approach their time like accountants; that this is this great disconnect is that they’re very structured and systematic about their time and produce the most unstructured, brilliant, creative insights. So it’s a key paradox to point out because I really want to emphasize it. Adding structure and control to your time really can be the key to getting the biggest insights and most interesting work produced.

VEDANTAM: I’m wondering if part of the tension comes about because we actually think of inspiration as being the thing that strikes us unexpectedly. And I think the case that you’re making is that inspiration actually can be scheduled to arrive on command.

.. NEWPORT: Well, as, you know, Chuck Close said – the artist – inspiration is for amateurs. I think we overfocus on the inspiration piece. If you’re systematically pushing yourself and your knowledge and your craft, you will have inspiration. It will happen in the shower. It’ll happen while you walk to work. What’s important is, you know, setting yourself up to have that inspiration and then giving yourself the time and structure you need to act on it, to actually produce something of value out of it.  So I downplay the importance of inspiration and I emphasize the importance of creating a life where inspiration as possible and you’re well suited to act on it.

.. I’m wondering if some people might say your advice is really advice for people who are, in some ways, are at the top of their food chains. So if you have an author who basically is able to say, I’m going to disconnect from the world for 18 months, I’m just going to focus on writing this book. You know, someone else is probably picking up after this person in all kinds of different ways. If Cal Newport says, you know, I’m going to close the door in my office, I’m not going to answer my phone, I’m not going to check my email, but someone needs to get in touch with you in an emergency, that person is probably going to reach an assistant of yours.

And that assistant doesn’t have the same luxury of deep work as you do because he or she needs to be available to hear what the emergency is or to hear what the request is. Does having a group of people who are engaged in deep work necessarily mean there must be essentially a second tier of workers who are engaged in shallow work to allow the deep thinkers to do their deep thinking?

NEWPORT: It doesn’t require that, but it usually requires some type of reconfiguration of communication channels and expectations.

 

..  I think a big part of it is lack of metrics. So if we look at two parallel case studies, two different industries – let’s look at the Industrial Revolution and the rise of mass industrial production. This was a world where the metrics for productivity were very clear. How many cars per hour is our factory producing? And what we saw in that world – where bottom-line value is very easy to measure – is that very quickly, the structure of work moved away from what was convenient for the workers and towards what produced more value.

It moved away from the old system in factories where you had people work in teams at one spot in the floor to assemble the car towards things like the assembly line, which are incredibly inconvenient. It’s very hard to manage an assembly line. It’s very hard to get it right. It causes lots of issues. It’s annoying. But it produces a lot more value.

You move to digital knowledge work – we don’t have those metrics. It’s much harder to measure, OK, what’s the cost to our bottom line if you’re more distracted or less distracted? And so my conjecture is that without those metrics, we are going to fall back on these interpersonal or cultural biases. We’re wired to be social. We don’t want to upset someone. These type of biases take over because it’s much harder to measure, in this new world, the impact of different behaviors.

 

.. I’m wondering if that might be a psychological driver in people being unwilling to actually cut themselves off because not only might they discover that they are more productive, but they might also discover the world does just fine – thank you very much – without you.

NEWPORT: Yeah. I think that’s one of three big psychological drivers that have led us to this world we’re in now of the sort of constant-connectivity business. So that’s certainly one, I think – this notion of, we get a sense of meaning and usefulness out of constantly being involved in interaction. I think the other two psychological drivers – one is just, we’re wired to be tribal. And it’s very difficult for us psychologically to know there’s an email waiting that we’re not answering. And even if we know for a fact that the person who sent that message does not need a fast response, it still feels like we’re at the tribal fire, and there’s a tribe member standing there tapping you on the shoulder, and you’re ignoring them. We just have a very hard time with that.

And I think the third driver is, knowledge work is much less structured. And so how do you prove to your organization or to your boss that you’re valuable? And busyness as a proxy for productivity is something that a lot of people have defaulted to.

.. Well, at the very least, if you see I’m sending lots of messages, you know I’m working. And so I think those three different factors are all intertwining to get us to this place where we find ourselves just constantly sending messages as opposed to thinking hard thoughts or producing new things.

TED Talk: Tim Hardford: How messy problems can inspire creativity

Then the producer came over to Vera and said … “If you don’t get a new piano, Keith can’t play.”

01:29
There’d been a mistake. The opera house had provided the wrong instrument. This one had this harsh, tinny upper register, because all the felt had worn away. The black notes were sticking, the white notes were out of tune, the pedals didn’t work and the piano itself was just too small. It wouldn’t create the volume that would fill a large space such as the Cologne Opera House.

.. Obviously I’m going to say that the groups with the stranger solved the problem more effectively, which is true, they did. Actually, they solved the problem quite a lot more effectively. So the groups of four friends, they only had a 50-50 chance of getting the answer right. Which is actually not that great — in multiple choice, for three answers? 50-50’s not good.

10:14
(Laughter)

10:15
The three friends and the stranger, even though the stranger didn’t have any extra information, even though it was just a case of how that changed the conversation to accommodate that awkwardness, the three friends and the stranger, they had a 75 percent chance of finding the right answer. That’s quite a big leap in performance.

10:34
But I think what’s really interesting is not just that the three friends and the stranger did a better job, but how they felt about it. So when Katherine Phillips interviewed the groups of four friends, they had a nice time, they also thought they’d done a good job. They were complacent. When she spoke to the three friends and the stranger, they had not had a nice time — it’s actually rather difficult, it’s rather awkward … and they were full of doubt. They didn’t think they’d done a good job even though they had. And I think that really exemplifies the challenge that we’re dealing with here.

.. Brian Eno. He is an ambient composer — rather brilliant.

11:53
He’s also a kind of catalyst behind some of the great rock ‘n’ roll albums of the last 40 years. He’s worked with David Bowie on “Heroes,” he worked with U2 on “Achtung Baby” and “The Joshua Tree,” he’s worked with DEVO, he’s worked with Coldplay, he’s worked with everybody.

12:11
And what does he do to make these great rock bands better? Well, he makes a mess. He disrupts their creative processes. It’s his role to be the awkward stranger. It’s his role to tell them that they have to play the unplayable piano.

12:28
And one of the ways in which he creates this disruption is through this remarkable deck of cards — I have my signed copy here — thank you, Brian. They’re called The Oblique Strategies, he developed them with a friend of his. And when they’re stuck in the studio, Brian Eno will reach for one of the cards. He’ll draw one at random, and he’ll make the band follow the instructions on the card.

So this one … “Change instrument roles.” Yeah, everyone swap instruments — Drummer on the piano — Brilliant, brilliant idea.

.. 12:54
So this one … “Change instrument roles.” Yeah, everyone swap instruments — Drummer on the piano — Brilliant, brilliant idea.

13:02
“Look closely at the most embarrassing details. Amplify them.”

13:08
“Make a sudden, destructive, unpredictable action. Incorporate.”

13:14
These cards are disruptive.

13:16
Now, they’ve proved their worth in album after album. The musicians hate them.

13:24
(Laughter)

13:25
So Phil Collins was playing drums on an early Brian Eno album. He got so frustrated he started throwing beer cans across the studio.

13:34
Carlos Alomar, great rock guitarist, working with Eno on David Bowie’s “Lodger” album, and at one point he turns to Brian and says, “Brian, this experiment is stupid.” But the thing is it was a pretty good album, but also, Carlos Alomar, 35 years later, now uses The Oblique Strategies. And he tells his students to use The Oblique Strategies because he’s realized something. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t helping you.

14:11
The strategies actually weren’t a deck of cards originally, they were just a list — list on the recording studio wall. A checklist of things you might try if you got stuck.

14:23
The list didn’t work. Know why? Not messy enough. Your eye would go down the list and it would settle on whatever was the least disruptive, the least troublesome, which of course misses the point entirely.

.. So however we do it … whether it’s sheer willpower, whether it’s the flip of a card or whether it’s a guilt trip from a German teenager, all of us, from time to time, need to sit down and try and play the unplayable piano.