"Employees are more productive when they're allowed to engage in 'Internet leisure browsing.'" (Image by Mateo Inurria.)

It’s obvious that creative thinking requires time to just space out, that your brain can’t connect the dots if it doesn’t have free moments to recognize they exist and understand the relation between them, but science backs up what’s intuitive in this case. An excerpt from “Bother Me, I’m Thinking” in the Wall Street Journal, neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer’s article about the value of not focusing:

“Scientists have begun to outline the surprising benefits of not paying attention. Sometimes, too much focus can backfire; all that caffeine gets in the way. For instance, researchers have found a surprising link between daydreaming and creativity—people who daydream more are also better at generating new ideas. Other studies have found that employees are more productive when they’re allowed to engage in ‘Internet leisure browsing’ and that people unable to concentrate due to severe brain damage actually score above average on various problem-solving tasks.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Memphis and the University of Michigan extends this theme. The scientists measured the success of 60 undergraduates in various fields, from the visual arts to science. They asked the students if they’d ever won a prize at a juried art show or been honored at a science fair. In every domain, students who had been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder achieved more: Their inability to focus turned out to be a creative advantage.”