Useless Projects: Catalyst for Creative Ideas

While talking to a friend earlier this week, I realized that many of my best projects started out as what seemed like a distraction from more pressing work – ignoring my email inbox to read an interesting thread on Twitter or abandonning a work presentation for an hour to grab a coffee with a colleague.

These so-called distractions would plant the s... See more

To come up with new ideas, you have to have space to be messy, to procrastinate, and to let your mind wander and free-associate. But there needs to be a balance. You eventually need to channel it into something concrete, or you won’t produce anything.