Free 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman Page A

developed a simple, no-nonsense, and ingenious way of deciding whether the pasta names suggested by volunteers should be categorized as creative or uncreative. They worked through all of the suggestions, carefully counting the number of times that a pasta name ending in i versus another letter was proposed. Since the five examples given at the start of the experiment all ended with i , they concluded that any suggestion also ending in i was evidence that people were simply following the crowd and being uncreative, whereas those names ending in another letter were more innovative.
    The results were interesting. The volunteers who had been consciously thinking about the task produced more pasta names ending in i than did those who had been busy chasing a dot around a computer screen. In contrast, when the more unusual pasta names were examined, the dot-chasing volunteers produced almost twice as many suggestions as those in the other groups.
    These startling findings yielded considerable insight into the relationship between creativity and the unconscious. Volunteers in the “follow the dot” condition felt as if all their attention and mental effort were fully engaged in tracking a dot as it moved around a computer screen. However, their unconscious mind was working on the problem at hand. Perhaps more important, it wasn’t just reproducing the same work as their conscious mind; it was thinking about things in a very different way. It was being innovative. It was making new connections. It was creating truly original ideas.
    Many standard texts on creativity emphasize the value of relaxation. They tell people to take it easy and empty their mind of thoughts. The Dutch research suggests exactly the opposite. Genuine creativity can come from spending just a few moments occupying your conscious mind, thus preventing it from interfering with the important and innovative activity in your unconscious. Everyone can be more creative—it is just a matter of keeping the loud guy in your head busy and giving the quiet guy a chance to speak up.
    IN 59 SECONDS
    When you next want to come up with a creative solution to a problem, try the following technique and see what pops into your mind. If the word-search puzzle is not for you, try tackling a difficult crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other task that fully occupies your conscious mind.
    A. What problem are you trying to solve?
    B. Find the ten target words inside the grid. The words might run horizontally, vertically, or diagonally and be either forward or backward. There may also be an overlap between the words.
    TARGET WORDS
    SIXTY
    SECONDS
    CREATIVITY
    BOOST
    QUICK
    RAPID
    THINK
    CHANGE
    NEW
    FRESH

    C. Now, without thinking too much about it, jot down the various thoughts and possible solutions that come to you.
    ANSWER

    GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOUR INNER GORILLA
A few years ago I wrote a book about creativity called Did You Spot the Gorilla? It outlined four techniques designed to help people think and behave in more flexible and unusual ways. Here are summaries of each of the techniques and some exercises designed to help you implement them.
Priming . Prime your mind by working feverishly on a problem, but then give yourself a release of effort by doing something completely different. During the release period, feed your mind with new and diverse ideas by, for example, visiting a museum or an art gallery, paging through magazines or newspapers, going on a train or car journey, or randomly searching the Internet. But don’t push it. Simply immerse yourself in novel ideas and experiences, and leave it up to your brain to find connections and create seemingly serendipitous events.
Perspective . Changing perspective helps produce novel solutions. Try imagining how a child, idiot, friend, artist, or accountant would approach the problem. Alternatively, think about two analogous situations by applying the “is like” rule (e.g., “Attracting more people to my business is