Think Like a Rocket Scientist

current system that now powers our lives.5 Tesla built and tested inventions all in his mind. “Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out mentally,” he explained. “I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop.”

Instead of making curiosity the norm, we wait until a crisis occurs to become curious. Only when we’re laid off do we begin to ponder alternative career paths. And only when our business is disrupted by a young, scrappy, and hungry competitor do we gather the troops to spend a few futile hours to “think outside the box.”

For answers, we rely on the same methods, the same brainstorming approaches, and the same stale neural pathways. It’s no wonder that the resulting innovations aren’t innovations at all.

geniuses don’t have a monopoly on thought experiments. There are no chosen few.

James March writes that “playfulness is a deliberate, temporary relaxation of rules in order to explore the possibilities of alternative rules.”

individuals and organizations "need ways of doing things for which they have no good reason. Not always. Not usually. But sometimes."

Pursuing a thought experiment—even one that leads nowhere—can lead to breakthroughs.

I assumed that only boring people got bored, so I filled—no stuffed—every moment of my day with activity.

If we don’t take the time to think—if we don’t pause, understand, and deliberate—we can’t find wisdom or form new ideas.

Falling into boredom allows our brain to tune out the external world and tune into the internal. This state of mind lets loose the most complex instrument known to us, switching the brain from the focused to the diffused mode of thinking. As the mind begins to wander and daydream, the default mode network in our brain—which, according to some studies, plays a key role in creativity—lights up.

When we sit still, we turn into a magnetized rod that attracts ideas.

breakthrough begins with asking a good question, laboring over the answer intensely, and being stuck in idleness for days, weeks, and sometimes years. Research shows that incubation periods—the time you spend feeling stuck—boosts the ability to solve problems.

“Walking,” he explains, “has a very good effect in that you’re in this state of relaxation, but at the same time you’re allowing the sub-conscious to work on you.”

Stephen King agrees: “Boredom can be a very good thing for someone in a creative jam.”

The next time you feel boredom arising, resist the temptation to take a hit of data or do something “productive.” Boredom might just be the most productive thing you can do.

Put differently, it’s easier to “think outside the box” when you’re playing with multiple boxes.

Consider the result of one study, where researchers separated the participants into three groups and asked them to solve a complex problem.78 The first group worked in complete isolation, the second group was in constant interaction, and the third group alternated between interaction and isolation. The best-performing group was the third. “Intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence,” the researchers observed

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”

This isn’t to suggest that all original ideas come from beginners. To the contrary, expertise is valuable in idea generation, but experts shouldn’t work in complete isolation, the lone genius lore be damned. Experts also benefit from intermittent periods of collaboration, particularly when amateurs are brought into the mix.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,” Kennedy said, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”