“Nobody ever arrives at a very big idea through a conscious, rational thought process. It comes from your unconscious,” noted the advertising legend David Ogilvy. I believe he is right. Breakthrough ideas are often not the result of conscious striving to come up with a solution to a problem or challenge we aim to resolve. Instead, “very big ideas” rather suddenly pop up and surface from the mysterious depths of our subconscious minds, where a rich reservoir of knowledge, stimuli, patterns and experiences resides that we cannot consciously access at will.

Now if our big ideas come straight from the “brainscape” of our subconscious minds, how can we dive into this hidden powerful idea pool? One way to activate the creative power of your subconscious mind is to incubate a solution. We discussed the creative principle of incubation in an earlier article in this column titled “Incubation: A walk on the mysterious side of creativity” (Bangkok Post, 2009.06.04).

The second strategy to gain access to your subconscious mind is to “Speed-Incubate” the right solution by using a special technique that I’ll introduce to you in a few moments. But first, let me ask you a few simple questions: How about you? Where are you when you get your best ideas? When does it typically happen? And what are you doing when it happens? Please take a minute to reflect on these questions, and jot down your answers on a piece of paper before reading on.

It is a very interesting phenomenon that around the world, regardless of the ethnic, cultural or educational background of the people you ask, you will invariably come across the same kind of answers: People get their best ideas while resting in bed, taking a shower, having a bath, driving in their car, playing sports such as running, swimming, cycling, or exercising in the gym, reading an interesting book, having a meal, listening to music, relaxing on the sofa at home, playing golf, taking a break in a coffee shop, sunbathing on the beach, hanging out with friends, hiking in nature, playing with their children, and so on. In short: most people get their best ideas when they take a break from work and engage in relaxing and enjoyable activities. They don’t usually get their breakthrough ideas in the office.

Here is where our second ideation strategy comes in. In order to quickly make a deep dive into your subconscious idea pool, simply take a break. Aim to come up with big ideas for a problem or challenge that you work on by mindfully “Taking a Break” as follows:

• First, at the beginning of your workday, focus on one important problem or challenge that you want to resolve, such as “How to better serve our main customer segments?” or “How to create a great new marketing slogan for our company?”

• For the next couple of hours, work intensively on your challenge. Immerse yourself in the problem, and make an effort to generate ideas for its resolution.

• Then, once you start to feel really tired from your thinking and idea generation efforts —or once it’s just about the time for it — take a break of one hour or more.

• During your break, completely let go of your challenge. Keep an open spirit of inquiry, and pay close attention to any stimuli that you encounter. Remain receptive for any idea related to your issue, and keep paper and pencil at hand to immediately write it down.

• Toward the end of your break, spend 5-10 minutes in solitude. Sit down comfortably and relax. Close your eyes and open your mind to receive ideas from your subconscious mind, thereby acknowledging that they may or may not come forth. Openly accept any idea with sincere gratitude (say “thank you”), and write it down right away.

Do you want me to share a secret with you? “Take a Break” is my favorite ideation method that greatly complements other techniques. Intuitively, I have practiced this strategy throughout my life, even before I knew about the theoretical and psychological underpinnings that advocate this approach. Many of my “very big ideas” appeared while taking a break after intensively working on an issue for a few hours.

In the past, while I was still in the rat race, I often went for an extended break whenever I felt stuck in a problem and needed a solution. So I went out for a run or for a workout to the gym, or had lunch or coffee breaks with friends or colleagues, or did some reading in solitude. Not surprisingly, some of my former superiors didn’t particularly like my extended work breaks. However, I was always able to get away with it because many ideas that I got in my breaks were crucial to produce great results at work.

Nowadays, “take a break” is part of my daily work routine at THINKERGY, and we have even turned the principle into a formal Ideation-Tool that we use in innovation projects to help the project team members to gain access to their “very big ideas” during their breaks.

Conclusion: “Learn to pause…or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you,” said the author Doug King. He is right. Remember that in the end, what really counts are your ideas and the results that you produce with them, and not being a slave to a rigid work schedule. Now enjoy your next break.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2010. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the title “Take a break — it just might lead to a big breakthrough” on 29 April 2010.