Avi

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Best way to get ideas

walkingIvy, from Seat­tle, WA, asks, “What’s the best way to get ideas?”

Well, Ivy, you are in luck. Just today a friend direct­ed my atten­tion to an arti­cle in, of all things, the April 21, 2014 Jour­nal of Exper­i­men­tal Psy­chol­o­gy. It con­cerned the effects of walk­ing on cre­ative think­ing. After doing any num­ber of exper­i­ments, four researchers con­clud­ed that, “Walk­ing opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a sim­ple and robust solu­tion to the goals of increas­ing cre­ativ­i­ty and increas­ing phys­i­cal activity.”

In oth­er words, if you are sit­ting at your desk, and can­not think of anoth­er word to write, then get up and take a hike.

Please note: this is not some­thing taught in writ­ing classes.

Nev­er­the­less, as the arti­cle itself sug­gests, one needs to “Give your ideas some legs.”

2 thoughts on “Best way to get ideas”

  1. Thanks, Avi, for the moti­va­tion to get up from the key­board (or pad of paper note­book) and do some think­ing while on the move. I have found this strat­e­gy use­ful often. It made sense. Now, Sci­ence concurs. 🙂

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  2. I get so many ideas when I am dri­ving, alone, on coun­try roads where traf­fic is not a dis­trac­tion. Trou­ble is, it’s not easy to jot them down! I keep a pad on the seat and jot down key words, but it nev­er comes back as strong as it was orig­i­nal­ly when it hit me!

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