Productivity Boosters | Finch Sells

Tell Your Boss: Brainstorming Is Dead

Dec 05 2011

It’s not easy to come up with creative ideas. One of the great myths of the ‘innovation gurus’ suggests that actively brainstorming possible solutions is the best way to stumble across a brilliant idea.

The reality is slightly more complicated. Brainstorming can only truly be effective if you give your brain the opportunity to serve up more than the same useless ideas your conscious mind is already familiar with. True creativity stems from the subconscious mind, of which traditional boardroom brainstorming rarely ever seeks the guidance.

My favourite explanation for how this process works is to imagine a small room with two men sat by a whiteboard. One of the men is imaginative and sublimely creative and yet hopelessly shy. The other man is extremely passionate and committed to his ideas, but is equally dominant and unwilling to listen to others.

If you were to enter the room a pose a question that required the men to work together creatively, there should be no prizes for guessing how the subsequent brainstorming sessions would unfold. The dominant man would lead the way, pitching his ideas with relentless enthusiasm but failing to tap in to the creative thought patterns of his colleague.

So what if we don’t want to harness the passion and conviction of Mr. Confident? What if we’re striving to dig deeper in to the creative mind of his shy colleague? The popular solution is to distract Mr. Confident. Let him watch TV, give him an iPad, do whatever is necessary to allow his creative colleague to take control of the session and present some truly creative ideas.

This drawn out metaphor is actually a very close match for the relationship between our conscious and subconscious mind.

The conscious mind is very loud, objective and logical – but it crucially lacks the ability to ‘think outside the box’. The subconscious mind, although not shy by nature, is a passive and reluctant observer to the thoughts we decide to run wild with. Just like the quiet colleague, it sits and waits for the room to turn silent.

Of course, the subconscious is infinitely more capable of producing breakthrough ideas, but to allow those ideas to develop we need our conscious minds to ‘tune out’ and delegate the job. This is what leads to the moment of inspiration in the middle of the night, or the comical lightbulb effect where brilliance strikes while you’re busy cooking dinner.

The subconscious mind never stops working on the questions you present to it, which is why it can be hugely beneficial to pose any questions that require creativity immediately before you distract your conscious mind.

If your favourite TV show is about to start in 5 minutes, it can be damn near impossible to get ‘real work’ done in the interim. So don’t bother. Instead, turn over your most challenging questions to the subconscious.

It’s a big help to write down the question, even if you feel like an embarrassment for doing so.

As an affiliate marketer, I might find myself reading the following dilemma over and over again: “How can I increase the profit on Campaign X from $100/day to $500/day?” Now if I turned over that question to my conscious mind, or worse – started to brainstorm the possibilities on my whiteboard – I would probably come up with the same ideas and the same problems.

But after repeating the question, and then sodding off to watch some TV, I can interrupt my usual line of thoughts and let the subconscious go about finding solutions. Those same solutions would rarely make it on to the whiteboard with the loud guy in the room doing all the talking.

You don’t have to watch TV. Simply keeping a puzzle book by your desk is a brilliant way of short-circuiting the conscious mind. As long as you’re kept busy with crosswords and number games, you’ll be unlikely to interfere with the subconscious genius at work.

The next time you’re seeking creative inspiration, don’t dwell on it. Pose the question, hand it over to your subconscious, distract yourself, and wait for the delivery. Having seen how stuck in its ways the corporate battlefield can be, I would suggest mentioning the process to your boss beforehand. I’m glad I work at home!

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Productive Desktops: Red, Blue or Whimsical Dolphins?

Nov 23 2011

So cometh the confession hour…

Who has a desktop that looks like this?

Given my rich celebrated history in front end web design (*snortle*), I am all too familiar with the sight. It screams to me… Friday afternoon.

You can forget the blue screen of death, it’s this rainbow of crackling static that poses a much greater risk to our hairlines.

While I do agree that productivity can be improved by culling the desktop clutter, you will also find a great deal of research which goes much further, suggesting that even our choice of wallpaper can affect working habits.

Is there such a thing as a productive desktop? Have I been shooting myself in the balls all this time with those whimsical dolphins, or the lovely sweeping Apple landscapes on my iMac? According to this University of British Columbia study, there is.

The study looks at how colour can affect our brain performance, using red and blue desktops to measure any cognitive boosts. It was established that test subjects with a red desktop performed better in tasks that required attention to detail and memory retrieval. However, the blue desktop was noticeably more effective for tasks that required brainstorming and creative thinking.

Juliet Zhu, author of the study, sums it up best: “Thanks to stop signs, emergency vehicles and teachers’ red pens, we associate red with danger, mistakes and caution. The avoidance motivation, or heightened state, that red activates makes us vigilant and thus helps us perform tasks where careful attention is required to produce a right or wrong answer.”

“Through associations with the sky, the ocean and water, most people associate blue with openness, peace and tranquillity. The benign cues make people feel safe about being creative and exploratory. Not surprisingly it is people’s favourite colour.”

In the light of this information, maybe I should change my desktop to vivid red whenever I’m feeling brave enough to bust open the accounting software? It would probably reduce the arse-numbing pain I associate with monthly reconciliation. Perhaps, if I’m short on inspiration for my affiliate campaigns, a swish of the ocean on my wallpaper would help.

Further studies have shown that solid colour desktops tend to work better than background images, which can steal attention away from the task at hand. Even if you don’t notice the distractions, your brain is latching on to every last glimpse of the image. So as tempting as it can be to place an affectionate image of your newborn son on the desktop, or your beloved pets, it’s probably not a smart idea.

It’s the same principle as listening to music on the job. You may think it boosts your comfort, helps you focus, and makes working a more pleasurable experience – I’m sure it does, on the pleasure scale – but the jarring influence of subconsciously following the lyrics (or furiously out loud, if you’re my girlfriend) shouldn’t be underestimated. And that’s why I am a huge white noise junkie, with some binaural beats thrown in for good measure.

Some people will go to crazy lengths to give themselves the best possible chance of staying productive. If you’re super cautious about your work, or perhaps enjoy indulging in the odd bit of freelance proofreading, you could go one step further.

Don’t just use a red desktop…

Paint the walls red. Buy red curtains. Force any visitors to enter your office lair in stark red overalls. Hell, you could become the devil’s child if you’re committed to the cause.

Likewise, if you’re missing the inspiration gene, you should probably just decorate your workspace in glorious royal blue Chelsea colours. Not only will you be boosting your creative thinking, but you’ll be supporting a real team in the process.

I’m shortly going to be running a case study on my affiliate marketing blog showing the effects of red and blue on consumer decisions. It should reveal some tasty tips for marketers, so for all my good fellow scumbags out there, keep an eye out!

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How The 80/20 Rule Applies To You

Nov 16 2011

It’s not rare to find that 80% of your sales are generated by 20% of your customers, or that 80% of your time is spent handling 20% of your chores.

This skewed outlook on life and business was first observed by the great Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who lent his name to the theory.

Pareto established, in the early twentieth century, that 80% of Italian land was owned by just 20% of the population. He later famously observed that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of the pods. Spurred on by the unusual correlation, his work continued and the Pareto Principle became lodged not just in economic folklore, but in business minds alike.

By running a business that is effectively a one man show, I have become a great believer in the Pareto Principle.

I’m convinced it can be applied to productivity. The principle is a great marker for ensuring I don’t become bogged down in tasks that waste my limited time.

I don’t think I’m alone in confessing that when I look at my to-do list, I can easily find tasks that satisfy my need to appear busy; tasks that contribute very little to my bottom line.

As an Internet Marketer, I often find myself profiting from one particularly lucrative advertising campaign. On a good day, it makes my other efforts look like a complete waste of time. If the lucrative campaign earns more than the rest of my work combined, why would I insist on wasting 80% of my time chasing those dead ends?

Probably because seeing the skewed reality is one thing. Acting on it is completely another.

The desire to appear busy is something that has been ingrained in us since childhood. Can you imagine the uproar at school had you refused to go to 80% of your classes? Or the backlash from your employer if you only worked 2 hours of your contracted 8?

Where our productivity is concerned, we are highly trained animals. To stay busy is better than to look lazy, even if the results are not always as we’d expect in doing so.

Sometimes it’s a welcome relief to step back and analyse where your success is coming from. What work is bringing in the bacon? Which tasks are you splurging blood, sweat and tears over for little reward?

These may seem like stupid questions. But I believe there’s much more potential in becoming a specialist, somebody who plays to his strengths, than a jack of all trades who couldn’t see his skill-set if it slapped him in the tits.

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