Wonder

The word rapid no longer does justice to the pace of change we’re experiencing.  We’re facing challenges we’ve never encountered before, and much has been written about the importance of creativity in helping us navigate them. Yet at the same time, we are balancing precariously on the edge of losing one of the key conditions creativity needs to thrive: daydreaming.

Any of my former teachers reading this may laugh. When I look through my primary school report cards, the word daydreamer appears repeatedly. Now, with an 11-year-old son who has inherited my ‘head in the clouds’ approach, I can see why my teachers despaired at times. It can be frustrating to deal with a daydreamer when you’re trying to get out the door or get something done. But as someone who lives and breathes creative theory and practice, I can’t help feeling quietly pleased. Daydreaming is a crucial part of creative thinking.

If you look at creative process models, such as the one proposed by Graham Wallas (back in 1926), they all include a crucial incubation phase. After you’ve primed your mind in the preparation stage, you have to step away and let your brain get to work in the background. Ideas need time to percolate. While science suggests that “eureka” moments don’t happen by magic, research does point to mind-wandering as helping to set the conditions for greater awareness and pattern recognition—often happening subconsciously and leading to ideas and solutions. You rarely reach the illumination moment without this step, and daydreaming is one of the simplest ways to let that incubation happen.

A key part of the brain involved in the incubation stage is the Default Mode Network (sometimes referred to as the imagination network). It helps us make meaning from experience, remember the past, imagine the future, and consider possibilities beyond what is directly in front of us. This network comes to life when our attention isn’t fixed on a single task. When we’re laser-focused, it quiets down—which is useful for getting things done. But if we stayed in focus mode all the time, we would miss the processing and imaginative work that creative thinking depends on.

The best description I’ve come across is that in focus mode, our brains are like a torch, casting a single beam of light in front of us. You can only see what your are pointing the torch at which is brilliant for getting things done. But the DMN, or unfocus mode, is like switching on the big light in a room. Suddenly you can see all around you. You can’t focus on everything at once, but your peripheral awareness opens up and you start to notice connections and possibilities. In focus mode, we can’t see the wood for the trees; unfocus mode helps us zoom out and see the bigger picture.

We need both focus and unfocus in our lives. There are times when we need to concentrate and get things done. But in this accelerated culture, productivity has become the fixation, often at the expense of daydreaming and time to think. We’re pushed to do more for less, and the idea of sitting and thinking deeply has become uncomfortable, even indulgent. So we fill every spare moment with inputs, distractions, and output, uneasy about the optics of taking breaks, daydreaming, or doing anything that doesn’t look productive.

The paradox is that we’re often more productive—and add more value—when we take time to think and let our imagination network light up. If you look at the habits of many great thinkers of the past, they worked intensely for a few hours, then spent long stretches walking, wandering, and pondering, allowing ideas to percolate. There’s a reason our best ideas rarely arrive at a desk but in the shower, on a walk, while driving, or during any activity that doesn’t demand full attention. In these moments, the Default Mode Network activates, quietly connecting patterns, memories, and experiences that lead to ideas and solutions.

A key takeaway is that daydreaming benefits from being intentional. As Dr Srini Pillay notes in Tinker, Doodle, Dabble, Try, when our minds drift unintentionally during the day, it’s often a sign that the brain is tired and needs a break. But when we deliberately build in space for those incubation phases—whether while working on something specific or through regular breaks—daydreaming becomes both constructive and restorative. In a world that keeps asking us to move faster, do more, and stay focused, it may feel counterintuitive to make space for unfocused time. But creativity has always depended on that rhythm between focus and unfocus.

If we want better ideas, better solutions, and better ways through the challenges ahead, we can’t afford to lose the art of daydreaming. We just need to make a little more room for it.

Ponder

• When in your week do your best ideas tend to arrive, and what conditions seem to make that possible?  How can you get more of that?
  
  
• Where has constant “focus mode” crowded out time for thinking, wandering, or noticing connections?  What impact has this had on you?
  
  
• If you treated daydreaming as a skill to protect and develop rather than a habit to fix, what might you do differently this month?
  
  
• What would a deliberate incubation phase look like in one piece of work you’re currently tackling?
  
  
• How might you build a rhythm between focus and unfocus in a way that still meets deadlines and expectations?
  

Wander

• Tinker Dabble Doodle Try (book) — Srini Pillay — Explores the neuroscience and value of constructive mind-wandering and mental downtime.
  
  
• The Magic Behind Day Dreaming (Tedx Talk) – Christina Mackay – Explores how daydreaming supports creativity, reflection, and deeper thinking rather than being a distraction.
  
  
• ‘Ode to positive constructive daydreaming’ (journal article) — Scott Barry Kaufman &  Jerome L.Singer – Research overview showing that intentional mind-wandering supports creativity, planning, and meaning-making.
  
  
• ‘The Default Mode Network’ (short video) — Neuroscientifically Challenged — Clear explanation of the brain network involved in reflection, memory, and imagination.
  
  
• A Technique for Producing Ideas (book) — James Webb Young — A classic short text outlining preparation, incubation, and illumination in creative thinking.
  

Image used in this blog is by Handy Wicaksono on Unsplash