Olivia Jeanette

Happy Monday!

I wanted to start the week with a little bit of knowledge, or at least an interesting topic…

It came from a series, I’m sure you are aware of, Ted Talks. Lately, I’ve become a big fan. It’s a great spot to go to get inspiration, unique perspectives and ideas to ponder. My friends, John and Kaley, referred me to one in particular titled “How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas.” I immediately began thinking about when I’m bored. Nowadays, everyone is so busy, including myself. Thinking back, there were two specific times I remember being bored or letting my mind wander. One time I was in the shower and the other time I was blow drying my hair. Both times something interesting happened, but before I tell you what, let me tell you a little more about this podcast.

Ted Talk

Friday night I decided to turn on this Ted Talk and see what insight the speaker had to offer. We put Sebastian in his crib, I put on my headphones and cozied up under the covers (Matt freezes me out with the air condition). I wanted to give it all of my attention, as someone in a creative field, I’m always looking for inspiration and ways to spike my creative thinking. This was the perfect way to end the workweek!

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Brainstorming

It took me a few minutes to get “into” the podcast. For some reason I wasn’t connecting with the speaker. It took a lot of willpower to not hop over to Instagram and start scrolling. Instead, I put my arms to my side and made myself focus. As she began to speak and present information, one of the first things she makes note is that when we look to be creative, we tend to set-up “brainstorming” sessions. While they mean very well, it tends to be just another event on the schedule. We are so use to doing one thing after another, with a very structured schedule. Even in those “brainstorming” sessions, we aren’t able to truly release from everything and let the brain wander. Rarely does anything come out of these sessions or at least for me when I was doing them.

Multi-Tasking

Another thing that caught my attention, was how one of the doctor’s described what actually is happening when we are “multi-tasking”. While we think we are doing four things at once, our brain is actually only able to focus on one thing at a time.  When we let our minds rest or even daydream, this is when your mind is hard at work, solving all the problems in your life. As a self-proclaimed multi-tasker, looking back, it actually kind of makes sense. We miss things when we are trying to do too much at once, we are actually being less efficient and we are making needless mistakes. The more unstructured day should allow for some time to just relax and get creative. There are so many unique challenges throughout each day and wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to solve a few of those daily challenges. Having time to just let the mind wander a little bit will hopefully allow my mind to subconsciously think beyond.

The Experiment

The speaker decided to have a little test group and see how often people are on their phone. Turns out, on average, people are on their phones 2 hours a day and pick up their phone 60 times. Yikes! Then they challenged their test group with a few tests, everything from putting your phone away to deleting their favorite apps. You have to listen to what a former Google designer had to say about this subject. I won’t ruin the end result, but it was interesting to listen to the final data points. I’d highly recommend listening to the entire podcast.

What I’m doing

This weekend I took it upon myself to “lose” my phone in the apartment. Conscious or maybe it was subconsciously, I’d put my phone in the most obscure places. I’d go 4-5 hours without thinking about my phone. Matt and I rearrange the entire apartment, put together meals plans for the entire week and spent a lot of quality time with Sebastian. This weekend I posted a little less than usual on Instagram, but I needed to turn off. As a social media influencer/blogger, I consistently have to be on. Not only on, in front of the camera, but also thinking of new content ideas for you, my readers. I’m in a sorta rut and this was just the push I needed to put down the phone and let my mind do the thinking.

Back to my original story, when I was showering and blow drying my hair, I finally figured out how to rearrange our apartment where everything could fit seamlessly (living in NYC, this is always an obstacle). Oh yes, I also gave Matt a to-do list about a mile long. There were so many things I remembered, new content ideas I came up with and overall inner peace. Then Matt came into the bathroom with Sebastian and it started all over again (and I love every second of it)! I hope this helps or gives time to pause.

ps. I’m also working on Morning pages and Headspace to help with my creativeness.

Has anyone listened to this Ted Talk? Thoughts? Would also love to hear your recommendations for Ted Talks. I’m starting to listen to them more often.

xo, Olivia