First, apologies for the gap in articles here. We've had a massive winter storm in Portland that knocked out power in 20 degree weather and has knocked over thousands of trees in the area. We're ok, fortunately, but it's been A Thing. Anyway - on to the article!
The human brain is an incredible thing. Even here in 2024, the brain is more efficient than the most modern computers, requiring far less energy for the "work" it is able to do. The engineers who design computers keep trying to make them more and more like the human brain because of how effective and efficient it is...pretty cool. Your brain is your single most powerful resource, so, let's talk a bit about how it works and how we can make our brains work well.
One fascinating element to the brain is that it essentially has two modes of thinking. The first is active processing, which is when you are intentionally trying to think about something. When you sit down to do homework, or a work assignment, or write an email, you're engaged in active processing. The second is unstructured thinking, which is a bit more complex - this is sort of the brain wandering on its own, pulling from memory and your subsconsious to insert thoughts into your head. This is where the term "shower thoughts" comes from - when you aren't engaging your brian in active processing, you free it to wander in an unstructured manner, to tap into your subconscious and other not-well-understood concepts of thinking.
Active processing is something we're all familiar with. When we need to do a task, we think about it and figure out how we're going to do it. To be clear, not all tasks require active processing - something you've done a million times to the point where it's become a habit doesn't require your brain to spend much energy thinking about it (thus "shower thoughts" - you've showered many times in your life...or at least I hope you have....and so you don't need to put a lot of effort into thinking through the steps. It's a habit, and you just do it, which frees your brain up for unstructured thinking). Active processing is good for tasks that require specific direction and steps. What it's not good for is creativity - creativity on demand is incredibly hard (which is of course where the term "writer's block" comes from), because most of creativity comes from unstructured thinking.
Unstructured thinking is much less rigid than active processing. This is when your brain can wander and it can pull in "stuff" from the rest of your consciousness. This is what causes seemingly random ideas and thoughts to pop into your head when you're doing something like taking a shower or doing the dishes. Sometimes these thoughts are goofy and meaningless ("why are hot dogs sold in packs of 6, but hot dog buns come in packs of 8?"), but, sometimes there are great ideas that occur here. In fact, the idea to write this particular piece came....while I was sitting in my hot tub relaxing.
Ok, so what's the point of all of this? Well, the point is that A) unstructured thinking is valuable because it's where most good ideas come from, and B) the modern world makes getting to a point of unstructured thinking harder and harder. Our workplaces have become ever-focused on efficiency, trying to do as much as possible as quickly as possible. Downtime is the enemy. In our personal lives, we're constantly being stimulated by content - we're online, we're streaming stuff, we're checking social media, we're playing a game...whatever it is, we're doing things that keep our brains in active processing mode and limit our opportunities for unstructured thinking. Everything in our world is faster, more, now. But our brains aren't good at that. Our brains are function better when they have a chance to slow down.
But we WANT unstructured thinking. More than that, our brains NEED unstructured thinking time. Did you know that people reporting problems with sleep have increased enormously in the last 20 years? Here's at least part of the reason: when our brains are kept in active processing mode for too much of the day, they force some unstructured thinking time....when you're trying to sleep. Ever lie there in bed, exhausted but unable to fall asleep because it feels like you can't shut your brain off? This phenomenon is called racing thoughts, and it's believed to be caused at least in part by your brain demanding time for unstructured thinking. Your brain is essentially refusing to go let you go to sleep until it gets what it needs. This is part of why sleep experts recommend disconnecting from any screens a while before bedtime, to give your body and your brain time to unwind and relax. Not getting enough unstructured thinking time is actually damaging to our sleep, and thus to our health.
More unstructured thinking will also make you more productive at work, at least if you're in the type of work where your brain is important. Most work involves solving problems in some fashion, and unstructured thinking helps us come up with better solutions to problems. In a world full of people who struggle with this, unlocking more unstructured thinking is something of a superpower: it will let you come up with more creative ideas and solutions to complicated problems. That means performing better at work, which means faster career progression, which means more money, and while money isn't the solution to all of life's problems...it rarely hurts.
Unlocking the power of your brain is a key step in unfucking your life.
So how do you do it? The good news is, it's relatively simple, because your brain is DESIGNED for unstructured thinking. It will do it on its own. All we have to do is remove the things that are stopping it from doing what it's made to do. You just need to get away and disconnect from the things that are keeping your brain stuck in active processing. Get away from the computer. Put down the phone. Don't take any calls. What you actually do isn't really all that important - it's what you aren't doing that matters. For me, I like to go on walks (without my phone) and relax in my hot tub. Maybe just doing mindless chores around the house works for you (I tend to get these unstructured thoughts when doing the dishes, for example). Some people like to meditate. The point is, you need to find activities that don't actively engage your brain. Going for a walk is probably good, because you've been walking since you were a small child and don't need to think much about it. Bonus: it's healthy! Going to the gym for a complicated workout routine in which you're carefully tracking weights and good form and repetitions is not necessarily going to help, because you probably need your brain in an active processing state to keep up with all of that (at least until you've done it so many times that it becomes habit and you can do it without thinking, and thus your brain can wander). A lot of new-agey hippie-sounding content is actually dead-on about this: things like "finding your place of peace" or whatever can help you to get your brain out of active processing mode. You just need to get the blockers out of the way and let your brain do its thing.
When I worked in the corporate world, one of the secrets to my success was forcing time for unstructured thinking. I would book meetings on my calendar....with myself. And I would go for a walk, or just relax. I wasn't goofing off playing Call of Duty, I was working...because my job involved coming up with solutions to complex problems (most knowledge worker jobs do). I'm not necessarily any smarter than my colleagues, but by ensuring that I had time for unstructured thinking within my work day, I was consistently able to deliver results that drove my career forward faster than most. Essentially, this is a career acceleration trick - it will help you progress faster, which is one step towards unfucking your life by building a successful professional path. Side effects of being generally more relaxed, happier, and sleeping better aren't so bad, either.