Pen and Paper on the Nightstand

Ran into this article while on CNBC for a class:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35928512/Why_Your_Best_Ideas_Don_t_Happen_At_Work

After some discussion around the dorms I figured it might be good here too. For me, I get my best ideas/solutions right before I go to bed. I take a bit of time to fall asleep, and for some reason I always come up with a good idea or plan on how to get something done. I really should put a pen and paper on the nightstand.

As for the article, I think it has a point. I'll worry about something for a while and think I have no way out, but lone behold a little time after moving on it'll come back up somehow.

Focus: Where/When do you get your best ideas?

Focus #2: Comment on the article.

 

This. I don't even try to think in the shower because I just want to enjoy the blissful hot water. However, sometimes my brain doesn't want to relax, and the next thing I know I'm coming up with a silly poem to read to my girlfriend.

Full disclosure: They are pretty much always of the "roses are red..." variety as far rhythm and meter go but with way different words.

 

Whenever I go back home and work for my dad during the summer i'm usually doing tractor work, so I always get my best ideas sitting on a tractor for 8 hours a day.

 

I would say at least half of my really 'good' ideas have come when I've been stoned.

- Radio contest ideas.
- April Fools Pranks.
- Meal Ideas.

I used to get so frustrated when I'd get stoned, come up with a great idea, and then forget about it the next morning. Now I've started leaving memos in my blackberry whenever I come up with something funny/creative when stoned.

 

Class, specifically finance or accounting classes* where I'd much rather let my mind wander than focus on whatever boring shit the professor is talking about. I've got a shoebox in my room literally stuffed with small pieces of paper that I had torn out of my class notes because I came up with some idea and immediately wrote it down.

My job also requires me to walk through the same building nonstop (museum security guard), so I have kept a pencil and sheet of paper in my pocket at times.

Most ideas pertain to my wee little business, so a few of the little drawings or diagrams have actually been put into use. Thanks, ACCT 3001!

*I'm a marketing major so it's the required classes like these that don't exactly pertain to my field of interests that I put minimal effort into.

 

When I have one, I'll get back to you.

 

-

 

Nice pitch. Now GTFO.

 

Interestingly enough alot of my best ideas seem to come when I've had a couple drinks. Numerous assignments have been finished by me sitting on a bus on my way to the bars or walking to the bars on the verge of being drunk and thinking about an assignment I should be doing instead. Send myself a text. Tend to come back, make the changes drunk as sin, and make the required edits the next afternoon.

I've tried the paper by the nightstand thing before. It's great, except I end up staying up all night writing shit down instead of sleeping. That's why I have to fall asleep to something I can concentrate on, but not too much. I just throw a TV show that I've already seen on and Im gone.

 

I tend to have mine when I'm in the process of waking up. This process is usually pretty drawn out so I forget a lot of them. I never get them when I am woken up by something like an alarm clock or if I have to get up and do something right away. It is always during that "I'm sort of awake but maybe I'll give myself another 10 mins (which means another hour). During that drifting in and out phase is when it happens.

Also sometimes when I'm stoned. I've gotten into the habit of writing a lot while I'm high and it is always fun to read the next day. 90% of it is either incoherent or flat out retarded, but occasionally there is a gem like the one which was the base of my undergraduate thesis. Thank god for word processors and cell phone notepads.

 

Without a shadow of a doubt some of my best ideas come together when I am taking a shit. The catharsis of dispatching one - that gets my brain processing. I have had ideas on how to solve issues at work, how to approach college work in the past, heck, I even came up with my college thesis on the crapper and regularily went, pen and paper in hand ready for moments of inspiration.

Shit = Gold

 

I lie in bed for hours at night unable to fall asleep because I'm thinking too much about everything under the sun, so when I get a decent idea about anything I'll put it into my phone and save it as a draft for the morning. I tried writing them on pieces of paper but can never read them later, the phone works much better. I do tend to keep a notebook with me to write down ideas or funny things my friends have said when we're out or having sneaking some beers in our parents' basements.

 

I remembered today that mowing the lawn is also another think-tank for me. Hopping on the tractor with three blue lights always allows me to think.

 

I have some of my best ideas when I'm doing simple manual labor. Last summer I worked as a Bellman/Janitor at a local hotel and I had a ton of time to think while I mopped and wiped various things down. The work was so boring that I entertained myself by thinking about philosophy or possible stand-up routines I might never do. The only problem is that I never brought a notebook with me to work for fear that the ideas might not be as good on paper.

 

Riding a motorcycle.

I'm not talking about my mind being elsewhere while dodging traffic but on the highway or back roads. There is just something about the hum (or growl depending on the bike) of the engine, the wind noise and general lack of need to think about who the band is on the radio or whathaveyou, that lets one meditate. Not absent-minded day dreaming but more of a deep meditation that lets me purely think things through. Sort of like sensory deprivation but the opposite. It works so well that one time I figured out the meaning of life, but I'll be damned if I didn't write it down.

 

Procrastinating.

Give me something to do, and a deadline, and I can promise you that the closer I get to that deadline, the more great ideas I will have and will want to immediately implement, about anything other than what the deadline involves.

 

Walking through the dead of night. I love cool, dark nights, and taking a casual stroll through them ALWAYS begins an involuntary process of intense thought about absolutely anything.

I also once sat on a plane for 7 hours doing absolutely nothing, or rather, that's how it looked. I was actually just caught up in a long series of trains of thought.

I read something while skimming through a motivational book that I really liked. "There is no such thing as 'boredom', there is only 'time to think'"

The rest of the content of the book aside, I rather like that premise.

 

Without a doubt, nearly all of the great ideas I've had have come to me while sitting on the toilet. In college, I began to notice that this was so prevalent that I'd apologize to my roommate in advance and sit on the toilet for an hour just to get an important paper started. I'd time my poop schedule accordingly and hold it for hours if necessary until I knew I had the time to sit and write.

Also, it doesn't work unless the pants are down, you're cheek-to-seat, and ready to go. If you just go in and sit there, your brain knows you're trying to trick it and it won't work. I swear this is true. Shit out, good ideas in. Gotta make room.