I was listening to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast titled Unleashing Your Creativity. As they were talking about how different scientists arrived at solutions to problems while dozing in front of a fire, gardening, stepping on to a bus, etc, I had a flash of insight myself.

For years now I have been a proponent of helping people realize they have the capacity for creativity. The insight I had is that people may not recognize or value when their unconscious has come up with a solution. If you think creativity and talent is something other special people have, you may not put a lot of stock in those momentary bursts of inspiration you have and work on developing or applying the thoughts you have.

Essentially, it may not be enough to tell people they have the capacity to be creative and teach them different exercises to stimulate creative thinking (i.e. improv, sketching exercises, etc.), it may be necessary to help people recognize the potential value of the ideas that occur to them and grasp on to them.

The main thrust of the podcast was how solutions often come to people when they aren’t thinking directly about them. I have had this experience often where I will think of a good marketing hook or solution to a scheduling issue while hiking, taking a shower, mowing the lawn, etc.

One of the many things I learned from the podcast though is that there is a particular set of circumstances where not thinking about the problem is actually effective. In one experiment in the Netherlands that podcast guest Ap Dijksterhuis conducted, they had one group focus on solving a problem and nothing else. Another group they had think about the problem and then provided them with a distracting activity. A third group they had think about the problem, tell them to forget about the problem because it wouldn’t be brought up again, and then provided them with a distracting activity.

Both the second and third group were introduced to the problem again. (Third group was essentially told, ha ha, we lied about it not coming up again.) The third group which was told to stop thinking about the problem was no more successful than the first group in solving the problem.

Coming to a solution while not thinking about only occurs if the unconscious knows that the problem still matters and needs a solution. Even if you have decided to leave a problem at work and enjoy the weekend, your brain knowing it is waiting for you on Monday keeps itself working in the background on your behalf.

So if you tell people that they may be able to find a solution by not thinking about it, make it clear there are different levels of “not thinking about it.”