Creative people are known procrastinators. We will spend three hours on the Internet researching, walk the dog, and organize our desk drawer all before we start working. Interestingly, that procrastination often serves a purpose. While we are doing other things, our brains are working on our creative problems. So when we finally sit down to work, the solutions appear like magic. This process is called creative procrastination.
The Shower Principle
Activities where you can let your mind wander like driving, walking, or showing work best. So many people get ideas when they take a shower that it is a real psychological phenomenon called the shower principle. Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive scientist and coauthor of Wired to Create, did a study that showed 72% of people get creative ideas in the shower. I know one writer who keeps a white board marker in his shower so that he can jot his ideas on the tile. Another writer friend of mine made a sale pitching over the phone an idea straight from the shower with soap still in his hair. For me, I get my ideas walking my dog or in the shower. Bestselling novelist Tess Gerritsen goes for a long boring drive whenever she gets stuck in a story. (She calls being stuck plot blocked, which is my new favorite story term.)
When you are stuck on a creative problem, the best thing to do is to get up from your computer. By focusing on something else you let your subconscious mind work on the problem. This is often when our greatest ideas come to us.
You call it procrastination. I call it thinking. – Aaron Sorkin
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright dodged a client for nine months, until the man drove 140 miles to confront him about his missed deadlines. Knowing his patron was on his way, Wright sketched his masterpiece Fallingwater in two hours.
Sleep On It
Just like mindless tasks help your unconscious brain solve problems, sleep can do the same thing. The phrase let’s sleep on it, exists for a reason; it really works. Thomas Edison was a famous napper. He would often take a nap during the day and wake up with a solution for whatever project he was working on. Early on in my career, I figured out that this is one of the ways my creative brain likes to solve problems. When I am reacting to written material, I read it once, make notes, sleep on it, and come up with more solutions. In fact, I ask my clients to turn in their projects for feedback 48 hours in advance of our meetings so that I can sleep on it.
A Caveat
Both the shower principal and sleeping on it only work if you have given some conscious thought and conscious work to your project. You need to have wrestled with the problem a bit before you disconnect. In other words, you have given your unconscious brain direction about what to think about when you’re not thinking about it. If I am really struggling with a story problem, I will tell myself to think about it right before I go to sleep. I almost always wake up with a solution.
Non-procrastination
Ironically, not practicing creative procrastination can be a problem. People that compulsively finish things early are called precrastinators. And while being organized is wonderful, never allowing things to percolate means you’re missing a big step of the creative process. I encourage you when you finish projects, whether you are a precrastinator or a procrastinator, to let them lie fallow. Put them in a drawer for a little while and come back and look at them with fresh eyes. If you can take a couple of weeks, that’s ideal. But even a couple of hours can be helpful. It’s just another way to let your unconscious brain work its magic.
What is your favorite way to creatively procrastinate?
Dive Deeper
Wired to Create by Scott Barry
Precrastination and the Science of Doing Too Much, Psychology Today
The Creative Power of Procrastination, Tiago Forte
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Showers work really well for me. We have a framed word picture in the bathroom that says “I get my best ideas in the shower.” But loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, doing chair aerobics, and on the stationary bike all have resulted in writing “ah-hah” moments. Before my mobility issues, long walks were my favorite, and I once figured out a plot wrinkle while in the neighborhood pool with my kids.
The stationary bike is a good one!
I must be too wound up all the time because I do not get ideas in the shower (my mind is on all the things I have to get done that day) nor when I sleep (I think it probably matters what your quality of sleep is — and if you don’t sleep solidly I doubt that’s very conducive to creativity).
However, if I get stuck on something in my manuscript it does sometimes help to leave it open on my computer then go take care of a couple tasks and come back, which freshens creativity.
Sometimes I can problem solve for a manuscript when reading posts by other writers, such as all the great TKZ posts, where something in the post will randomly trigger an idea or solution.
It also sometimes helps for me to work on a totally different manuscript.
Yes, I love switching between projects. It gives your brain a break!
Great post, Lindsey!
Talking a walk and giving my subconscious time to mull over whatever has hung me up can be very helpful. So can doing some exercise. For a longer break, writing a story or sketching out an idea for a different novel lets my subconscious percolate. I find in general novel ideas need to ferment for a while.
Taking a walk is my secret weapon! Even a walk around the plot is great.
My most creative time is usually right after I get in bed for the night. I used to get up and go to my desk to jot things down. I could be up and down five or six times. This was ridiculous, so I kept a notebook by my bed for ideas. Most of the time, I wrote over the top of sentences and could not decipher them in the morning. My daughter gave me a pen with a built-in light. This solved my problem!
I also get ideas on road trips, so I always have a notebook and several pens with me. On the other hand, two days ago I was reading a weather report about the current hurricanes, and three words became a book title. The protagonist and her story popped into my mind (nothing to do with hurricanes) and I immediately started a story notebook for it. Amazing how the brain works.
Those lighted pens are great! I would use them in screenings when I worked in Hollywood.
Thinking about a problem in my plot, then sleeping on it works for me. In those few minutes between sleep and waking up, the solution to the problem magically appears.
That is so cool!
Lindsey, “precrastinator” is a new word to me. I tend to finish early before deadlines and have a hard time being creative until “necessary” tasks are accomplished.
However, my subconscious is my superpower. It’s working all the time. When I’m stumped, I go for a walk. The subconscious is so well trained, it’s like a dog going out to do its business. Fortunately the ideas it pops up are far better than what the dog leaves!
Anyway, 100% of the time, I return from a walk with a solution.
Shower thoughts! My problem was I’d have a great idea but lose it before I got from there to my office. I finally got a pad and pencil that was designed for boaters, with water-resistant materials and suction cups to hold it on the shower wall.
I used to do the notepad beside the bed thing for middle of the night thoughts, until one morning I woke up to “CAN OPENER!!” with absolutely no idea why…
My procrastination isn’t productive – it just wastes time. And is often caused by brain fog I have little control over, due to illness and the 24/7 availability of SOMETHING on the internet. A hard sudoku is my test: if it takes more than about 6 minutes, there’s no point in trying to think.
I have to block the internet for a set period (whatever feels right that day, usually a couple of hours), and I can’t even do THAT until the brain fog mysteriously diminishes – then I remind myself life’s awasting, and quickly use Freedom to do that blocking.
Funny thing is, once I DO manage to invoke Freedom and block the net with a semi-functioning brain, that very limited computer space – a set number of open Scrivener files – focuses me.
And I get the next bit done (advantage of extreme plotting: I almost always know exactly what the next small bit to work on is).
Kind of like sharpening your knives in the kitchen, and knowing that you have a limited number of tasks the sharp edge will last for, so you don’t waste it.
The underlying question is always: Do you really want to finish this book (Pride’s Children: LIMBO, third in my mainstream trilogy)?
The answer since I published NETHERWORLD in 2022 has always been: Yes.
I’m trying to get to that point right now: decide with a sudoku that my brain IS working, and get Freedom started for today. 43.2 is prepped and ready to be written.
After a hell of a medicalized week.
It’s starting to take shape nicely.
Maybe the brain WAS working on some of it this week?