It’s All about Integration

Before you rush out the door for your walk or call your boss and let her know that you want more problems to work on, let’s dig a little deeper into the true meaning and the most critical-to-your-creativity findings of this study conducted by Root-Bernstein and colleagues.

You’ve probably heard it before, but work-life integration, not work-life balance may be the key to an innovative career. Having the viewpoint that there are two aspects of life — 1) activities related to work, and 2) activities not related to work — can be detrimental to your creative success. In fact, the scientists with the least professional impact compared to their very successful peers perceived science as one thing, and other aspects of their lives as “totally independent competitors for time and energy.”

One key takeaway that I want to leave you with is not to only to take more walks or devote your time to hobbies that stimulate visual thinking, kinesthetic feelings, and pattern recognition. It’s not to take up more hobbies so that you may become more intellectually stimulated. It’s too…

Take a good look at how and why you allocate your time the way you do and really scrutinize whether you are helping or hurting your innovative potential.

Some of the low-ranking scientists in the aforementioned study actually engaged in as wide a range of activities as the more successful ones. What was different, however, was how they viewed these activities. The most innovative scientists viewed their hobbies with a unifying focus — some how and in some way, each and every activity and problem they became involved with was an integral part of their overarching purpose.

Each hobby and activity were not only elements necessary to being “cultured,” but were viewed as valuable forms of training for various aspects of their primary work. Even time spent on problems apparently unrelated to their primary focus were viewed as being of value, as the possibility of extracting new insights from them to help with efforts of solving their original problem were deemed hopeful.

As you reflect on your working habits, your hobbies, and the way you spend your time, ask yourself, “Are all these things connected in some way, or am I just putzing around with a bunch of non-related things?”

Then, take action to engage in better hobbies, to work on a diversity of problems (but not too many), and to ultimately strive to find some personally meaningful connection between all the things you do.