You Need a Vacation. It’s a Scientific Fact.
by Amanda Arnold at HowStuffWorks
I’m not trying to be bossy, but you really need a vacation.
According to Psychology Today, your brain doesn’t come up with killer new ideas unless you give it a break. Apparently when you keep working and working and working on something, your brain keeps trying to solve the problem the same old way. That’s not innovation. But if you give your brain a breather and think about something else for a while (like, perhaps, how to not die while you drive the Road of Death), those boring old solutions fall away, opening the door for fresh ideas.
Here’s something else cool I learned about the brain: Ever notice that, right before you think of something completely awesome, there’s this sort of blank moment where everything freezes, and then — bam! — the best idea in the world pops into your mind? That’s because your brain had to control-alt-delete all of the useless old ideas for a second to let that new one squeeze through.
And that brings me back to my point, which is how to control-alt-delete all the old ideas to make room for new ones: Go on vacation! If you go, for example, to see the Nazca Lines or a bunch of accidental mummies in Mexico, you’ll be the smartest, most innovative employee on staff when you return. And, as far as I’m concerned, the weirder the stuff you see, the better. Pondering accidental mummification may seem like it has nothing to do with your job. It doesn’t. And that’s fantastic. You’re just shaking your Etch a Sketch brain so that, when you return to work, it can solve all your company’s most challenging problems with the newest solutions in the universe. You’re a hero. You’re a hero who just went on vacation.
Shake it up…
