C
reativity is one of the first casualties when we allow our-
selves to get too busy.
You rush from appointment to appointment, challenge
to challenge. The phone rings—another disaster. You run faster
and faster to keep even—never mind get ahead. There’s no time to
plan; you simply react.
In a moment of quiet despair, you realize that you haven’t had
anything resembling an original idea in weeks.
Where did your creativity go?
It didn’t go anyplace. You’re still thinking. In fact, you couldn’t
stop it if you tried. Go ahead. Sit in a corner and not-think for five
minutes. How about a minute? Five seconds? Can’t do it, can you?
zen masters need years of practice to learn to empty the mind.
Ah, but those aren’t pearls of wisdom rattling around in your
poor, distracted head, you say? More like the rattling of loose
change in an aluminum can?
Listen closer. Your wisdom, your intuition, your creativity are
right where they’ve always been, just beneath the surface of con-
scious thought. You just haven’t had time to listen.
You have almost infinite capacity for inventiveness and creativ-
ity. But when you get caught in the time trap, you leave no time for
reflection or for the incubation that yields flashes of insight.
Why You Shut Yourself Off from Your Good Ideas
Creative breakthroughs often derive from mistakes. Those ubiq-
uitous Post-it notes were one such “mistake,” a glue that failed to