July 30, 2015
Daydream your way to enhanced productivity
*PLEASE NOTE – DropTask is now Ayoa – an all-in-one tool for idea generation and collaboration, that goes beyond traditional task management. Discover Ayoa and achieve your best work.*
Task management app DropTask is designed to enhance your productivity, so you’re probably wondering why this blog post is recommending that you daydream at work. Daydreaming is only for the unproductive and lazy, right? …Wrong! As part of the DropTask team, I’m always looking for new ways to stay productive, so I’m here to tell you that daydreaming could actually improve your productivity!
“When we want to come up with creative solutions, it’s sometimes more productive to take a step back from the problem and let our minds wander rather than trying to aggressively force new ideas. In other words, it’s good to allow ourselves to daydream once in a while.” – Chris Griffiths, DropTask founder and author of Amazon bestseller, “Mind Maps for Business“.
Daydreaming is often attributed to a poor work ethic or a lack of motivation and drive, but in reality it is sometimes necessary to daydream in order for us to stumble across some of our best ideas. The most famous example of this is likely to be Sir Issac Newton when he awakened the world to the theory behind gravity. Here is an exceptionally well known thinker who experienced his ground-breaking ideas while daydreaming.
Does this mean that we should spend 10-12am every morning just staring out of the window? Probably not, but studies from the University of California about idleness and rest have shown that people who attempt a challenging task after taking a break often improve their performance by around 40 per cent. The University has also shown that when idle, your brain is performing mental processing to order memories, your concept of the future, social emotions and more. Almost like a disk defragmenter for your brain!
So the next time you are faced with a challenging task or perhaps something that requires a little creative thought, take a leaf out of Sir Issac Newton’s book and allow yourself a few minutes to daydream. Better still, if you can make your daydreams goal-oriented or purposeful, you may be well on your way to knighthood too!