Let Your Mind Wander

On the benefits of being scatterbrained.

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When I sat down to come up with an idea for today’s newsletter, I kept berating myself. “I can’t focus today,” I scoffed. “I’m all over the place.”

The implication, of course, is that being unfocused is a form of failure — and it’s no wonder we think that way, given that our culture values productivity so much more than creativity. (And how about the phrase “it’s no wonder"? Doesn’t that denigrate the value of playful wondering, too? No wondering needed, thank god!)

Yet daydreaming is actually good for us and can make us more creative and productive. There are so many stories: Archimedes apparently had his “Eureka” moment about the science of buoyancy while taking a bath. Virginia Woolf reportedly came up with the idea for To The Lighthouse while taking a walk. When 1,100 people were surveyed about when and where they experienced moments of insights as part of a 2015 study, 30 percent said they had them in the shower, 13 percent said they had them while driving or taking public transport, and 6 percent said they had them while out in nature.

Of course, we often have ideas when we’re focused on the task at hand, too — but those that come to us while daydreaming can be better. In a 2019 study, researchers had physicists and writers keep a diary for two weeks in which they were asked to describe their most meaningful creative ideas as well as what they were doing and thinking about when the ideas came to them. They also asked participants to rate the quality of their ideas in the moment as well as six months later, including whether the ideas felt like “aha!” moments.

The researchers found that about one in five creative ideas came to the subjects when their minds were wandering. They also found that, compared with other ideas, daydream-inspired ideas were more likely than others to be considered “aha” moments, were more likely to involve overcoming an impasse, and were more likely to be judged by the participants as both creative and important.

As the researchers concluded: “These results thus bear out the numerous anecdotes and indirect sources of evidence suggesting that creative inspiration routinely occurs during moments of mind wandering.”

In another study, researchers found that people came up with more creative solutions to problems after taking a break from trying to solve them and doing an undemanding task while daydreaming. If they tried to do other things during their break, like focus on a different task, they were less likely to solve the problems.

So why has daydreaming gotten such a bad rap?¹ And why do we sometimes avoid the experience when given the option? In one study, adults were given the choice of either entertaining themselves with their own thoughts for 15 minutes or giving themselves painful electric shocks. Two-thirds of men and one-quarter of women chose the shocks. (See also: Scrolling through Instagram when we have a few minutes of down time rather than allowing ourselves to be alone with our thoughts.)

In another recent study, researchers asked adults to predict how much they would like sitting in a quiet room alone, and then actually had them do it for 20 minutes. The participants predicted that they would dislike daydreaming more than they actually did.

Researchers have tried to understand in which circumstances mind wandering feels enjoyable versus tedious, and their work suggests that, unsurprisingly, people enjoy daydreaming when they’re thinking about something interesting. (I’d venture a guess that daydreaming is also far more enjoyable when your alternative is doing an unpleasant task.)

Daydreaming is often avoided for other reasons, too, including cultural myopia. We feel the need to focus on short-term gains at the expense of long term progress. In his book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang writes:

This illustrates a blind spot that scientists, scholars, and almost all of us share: a tendency to focus on focused work, to assume that the road to greater creativity is paved by life hacks, propped up by eccentric habits, or smoothed by Adderall or LSD. Those who research world-class performance focus only on what students do in the gym or track or practice room. Everybody focuses on the most obvious, measurable forms of work and tries to make those more effective and more productive. They don’t ask whether there are other ways to improve performance, and improve your life.

If we allow ourselves to daydream, we may end up ticking off fewer boxes today — and that feels bad, even though what we accomplish over the long run as a result of our flights of mental fancy might be that much more meaningful. If I hadn’t mind wandered about mind wandering yesterday, I wouldn’t have come up with the idea for this newsletter. Perhaps I would have written something much less inspired.

The last part of Pang’s quote about improving life is worth an extra beat of emphasis, too. We should allow ourselves these indulgences — long walks, hot baths, quiet moments at sunset — not just because they might make us more creative or productive. We should do these things because they have deep value in and of themselves.

What are your thoughts on daydreaming? And how, when, and where do you do it? Share in the comments!

1. Of course, mind wandering can be bad, if not dangerous, in certain contexts. I don’t want the air traffic controllers at JFK to daydream when my plane is coming in for a landing, thank you very much. Nor do I particularly want my kids to think about their upcoming vacation while they’re taking a math midterm.