Why Ideas Come to You in the Shower

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, is a surprisingly insightful guy.  I've been following his blog for some time and I read his latest book.  If you like thought-provoking stuff, I highly recommend them.

He just made this post about creativity:

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/creativity_hack/

There have been several articles floating around the web lately about how inspiration comes to us when we take our mind off of the problem.  For example, this one.

The idea always goes something like: "you have to let your subconscious work at the problem."  That sounds reasonable, I guess.  But it doesn't go far enough.

Scott posits that "creativity is something that happens naturally so long as your brain is not actively suppressing it for some sort of survival advantage... Putting it in simpler terms, creativity is a mental luxury that your brain will not allow until it feels safe or until the watchdog part of your brain gets busy handling some routine task such as driving the car."

He goes on to suggest that research (A-B tests) should be done to determine which distraction methods yield the most creativity.  I suppose the challenge here would be how to quantify 'creativity.'  But I'm sure that, at the very least, we could measure some proxy for it.

Don't Think Outside the Box

Gordius, the King of Phrygia, once tied a knot that no one could untie. It was said that he who solved the riddle of the Gordian Knot would rule all of Asia. So along comes Alexander the Great, who chops the knot to bits with his sword. Just a little different interpretation of the requirements, that's all… and he did end up ruling most of Asia.

Such is the introduction to a truly insightful section of the book The Pragmatic Programmer.  The ideas presented in this section, like many great software engineering principles, expand beyond the realm of programming.

Programming in any existing language requires clarity of thought.  One significant component of that is the removal (or at least, verification of) assumptions.  This idea is equally applicable to any problem we might face in the "real world."  When trying to solve such a problem, assumptions can really be the enemy:

If the "box" is the boundary of constraints and conditions, then the trick is to find the box, which may be considerably larger than you think.

The key to solving puzzles is both to recognize the constraints placed on you and to recognize the degrees of freedom you do have, for in those you'll find your solution... 

It's not whether you think inside the box or outside the box.  The problem lies in finding the box - identifying the real constraints.

This really resonated with me.  When given a problem, we are almost never given the full set of real constraints.  Most constraints are assumed or imagined, leading us to believe we have a much smaller box.  This leads to potentially less effective (and certainly less innovative) solutions.

So what should we do?  The authors continue:

When faced with an intractable problem, enumerate all the possible avenues you have before you.  Don't dismiss anything, no matter how unusable or stupid it sounds.  

This isn't so ground-breaking.  It's basically the idea of "brainstorming" that we all learned in elementary school.  But the authors go a step further:

Now go through the list and explain why a certain path cannot be taken.  Are you sure?  Can you prove it?

This step is where I know I have failed in the past.  I can generate a list of fantastical ideas, but I know I have been too quick to prune some of the more outlandish ones.

I won't make that mistake again.