I went to see Sean Lock do a comedy gig earlier this week and he was fantastic. His take on the world is quirky and his ability to see the funny side of the things we take for granted is brilliant!

One of his observations in particular really resonated with me: When we get on the train for our morning commute, we all get out our phones and are stuck to them for the rest of the journey.

Because of this nobody spends any time ‘wondering’ any more.

“Wondering: The desire to know something; feel curious.”

By ‘wondering’, I mean simply allowing your mind to curiously move from one topic to another, exercising your mental agility in a fairly non-lucid way. Although it sounds wishy-washy and like a good way to be unproductive for a while, research suggests it’s an excellent way to train your brain to think laterally and generate new ideas.

Given the amount of research that confirms day dreaming like this will improve your creative thinking, it seems like a waste of a commute to spend it stuck to your phone.

So today, I took a decision to leave my phone in my pocket for the next 30 days of my commutes and dedicate the time to ‘wondering’ and nurturing my own creative thoughts.

I don’t know what the results will be yet, but I hope that dedicating more time to creative thinking will feed positively into my day-to-day activities.

At the end of this experiment, I’ll update this post with the results!

Some links I found interesting when writing this:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661311000878