If you find it hard to let your mind wander, the professor explained that luckily, increasing our creativity doesn’t require much effort. She recommended starting out small, maybe with one day a week or in the evenings on the way home.
"Now that we're working from home more, however, it seems harder to find that clear-cut quiet or 'nothing time,'" she noted. "I've been trying (not fully successfully, I'll admit) to take 30 minutes after my morning work time to just lie down, go into that semi-sleep mode, and boom, good ideas seem to come then. Once again, by giving my brain a little 'downtime,' it continues to work but maybe goes at its own pace and then drops some creativity on its own time."
To become better at doing nothing, Napier advised you to "find activities that don't require heavy thought and use that as a time to let your brain wander; or have a set routine or habit that builds in some snippets of downtime." Several pockets of time that allow the professor to have a distracted mind and let her imaginations run free are her commute, taking a shower, and making coffee or tea.
Moreover, Napier sets the alarm to work for 40 minutes and then stops for 10, using that as downtime. "Some people lie down on a yoga mat and just meditate or sleep; ironing (20 minutes); laundry folding (5-10 minutes). Then, there are the specific gifts of time I offer to myself — when I declare I'll take an hour in the day to look at the clouds or birds."
"I suspect now, more than ever, we need the self-care of doing nothing now and then, and we need to make it something that happens regularly, not just when we're forced into it (when we get sick, injured)," Napier concluded.
