If you’ve ever been struck by a good idea in the shower — or while walking on an airport runway, sitting on a train, or watching passersby from a park bench — you know that our best thoughts can take shape when we’re in a state of transition.
Being in dynamic “journey” mode (versus a static “destination” mode) allows for more opportunities. When we’re on the move, we’re more likely to have chance encounters and to feel unbridled and relaxed. When those things happen, it sparks our creativity. Often, just changing our perspective (literally) helps us to think differently.1
Research shows that when we travel through a passageway between fixed spaces, we hit a kind of pause button in our brains. (This explains why it’s easy to forget something you walked into another room to get.2) While this can be annoying when it takes us by surprise, but it can be quite an effective productivity tool when wielded intentionally.
"Our best thoughts can take shape when we’re in a state of transition."
The same goes for the office. These tendencies figure largely in today’s distributed workforce: almost a quarter of US employees now telecommute, and our work is increasingly global.3 Often, our days extend beyond one time zone or physical environment. If unmanaged, these conditions can easily lead to mental and organizational fragmentation. But when adequately accounted for, they can actually spur us to do our best work.