Inspiration Tricks - LOLCats curing ‘Thinkers block’. Really. It’s an innovation

By Christopher Hire On June 26th, 2007

Humour is a way of breaking through a problem. It’s a form of distraction.

Also, a distraction can sometimes help you un-focus so the answer pops in your head. In terms of inspiration, rather than force a problem I try to eat, distract myself, joke, go for a walk, basically anything to shift my mind or environment when i am stuck.

I purposefully load up problems before flights or travel, as on a 90 minute flight I often do a weeks worth of thinking.

Grinding a way at the problem often does not solve problems where an idea is the solution. Grinding away works when it is a repetitive task, not a problem-solving task. Often a problem can be solved in 15 minutes, it’s just getting to the insight.

Grinding (the preferred technique of the long-hours-no-showers consulting firm set), does not solve most problems. Mostly it’s about being perceived to be at work for the requisite 60 hour week.

Breakthrough thinking and shorter hours can work better in ideas work, something the current ‘creative cool generation’ (I’ll forgive Gen X/Y as the tag) better understand.

As do a lot of CEOS and Board members, who also make it a point to leave the office. Long lunches have their benefit, something that works as long as their is a specified problem at hand.

Humour as inspiration tool

humour is the ideal distractor, and inspiration tool. it has to be simple and not too distracting eg. www.icanhascheezburger.com is one of the funniest blogs ever.

I visit the site once a week, mostly when my wife draws it to my attention! It’s cute animals with funny captions. Mostly cats.

Point is, humour can distract you. The ideal distraction lasts just long enough so you can get back to work. Ideally the distraction should not last longer than 5 minutes, so that you do not forget what the problem was. Time pits like YouTube are less ideal, as stats show people spend longer on YouTube , Facebook and Myspace.

Conversely, people typically spend less on individual blogs, so the content there is ‘just right’ for the ideal distraction. Digg (the news ranking site) is also good.

Here’s my favourite from cheeseburger:

I have met IT ‘professionals’ like that. But not as cute