Why a Digital Detox Won't Solve All Your Problems

or like some kind of infomercial. Yeah, But another way to think about creativity is another fun buzzword, which is innovation, which I think is the same thing. Yeah, as with everything, there's like a business reason why companies would want people to be more creative in their jobs. Yeah. I think that is what separates good businesses from bad businesses. And companies know that if they have created of or innovative employees,

that's how they can stand out. And then as an employee, if you're creative and innovative, that's how you stand out, right, or how you not get replaced by a robot. Yeah, we have to stay one step ahead of the robots. But how do we get to a place then where we can become more creative. And to be clear, we're not talking strictly about productivity hacks, although that might enter into it, and we have an episode about it if

you want to listen to it, that's right out. But being creative is not always doesn't always go hand in hand with being productive. So we should talk a little bit about what we mean by being creative before we get into the how. So I think being productive is getting anything done, getting tasks done, or like you know, you could say answering emails as a type of productivity, or like finishing your to do list, right, But creativity,

I guess in my mind, is harder. I actually came across a sort of working definition of creativity that researchers use. There is a research journal about creativity. It's called it's called the Creativity Research Journal. That's amazing, and um, I actually found this really useful. So the kind of working definition of creativity is originality plus effectiveness. So originality like you're coming at an idea or a problem in a way that other people haven't done it. You're you're doing

something different, you have a fresh angle. But originality alone isn't enough because you could be a crazy person spouting random nonsense, and that doesn't necessary That definitely makes you original, but it doesn't necessarily make you creative. So the effectiveness part is about creating value. I like that definition because it opens up creativity to means so much more than just like making art. It can mean coming at any problem in a new way and and being somewhat successful

at it. We work in a world that's designed in many ways to kind of like make it harder to get to that place where we can access that creativity and those creative thoughts. So let's talk about some of the things that might inhibit creative um. One of them is multitasking. Multitasking used to be I feel like there

was a time when multitasking was all the rage. Multitasking was supposed to be a core competency people had, and then I think the research community kind of came around to the idea that no one can really do more than one thing at the same time. It's just not physically possible, and in fact, you cost yourself a lot of productivity and brain power by trying to switch between tasks all the time. It feels like multitasking as some sort of productivity creativity hack was just an excuse for

people to not do work right. Well. I think it kind of came on in response to maybe like a new information age where everybody was like, oh, I can I can make more use out of my time. I can do all these things. I can check email, and I can have a meeting, and I can write a report, and everybody should be able to do that. They're all these, you know, skills you're suddenly expected to have for a while.

Multitasking seems like one of them. But I can't see how it's really bad for creativity because you're just distracting yourself from different things all the time. Yeah. I think one thing most people agree helps with creativity is just kind of clearing the decks for thinking about things in a fresh way. So that's why it can be helpful to get through your to do list, because you know, maybe you need to empty or quiet that part of your brain that's always telling you need to get stuff done.

But multitasking seems like it goes against that because you're you're just never really finishing anything, You're just constantly living between things. And I think what goes hand in hand with multitasking being a huge hinder and stating anything done is the thing that enables us to multitask, which is different types of technology. So like you're answering chats and checking your email and I don't know, you're in a

Google doc. It's like seems impossible to just concentrate on one thing when you have all these notifications coming at you all the time. Yeah, and we have an episode of that too, write about distractions, an episode for anything

and everything. But yeah, like tech feels to me like this really easily available scapegoat, not saying that it isn't real, but that we all we all look at these infringements on our sort of time and creative process and say, like, if only we could get rid of all the notifications in the apps, you know, we'd reach this creative utopia.

Like the digital detox has become a thing. Yeah, it's such a thing that there was an amazing Bloomberg Pursuits article about spas in New York City where they offer a digital detox package. So it's it's going to the spa and you give them your phone, right, But it's so in demand among busy professionals that they can sell these services, right they can. There's like a premium on telling people we will rescue you from your devices by like putting your phone behind the reception desk. What you

get a massage, and it caused hundreds of dollars. Maybe we don't need to go that far. Maybe we just need to separate from our apps enough to get a little bit bored. That's what our guest today is going to talk to us about. Manu summer Roadie is the host of the podcast Note to Self an author of

the recent book Board and Brilliant. Years ago, when Manu had her first child, he had a bad case of colic, which meant that she had to push him around in a stroller all of the time without making any noise because it was the only way he would sleep, and she describes these hours she spent walking as kind of excruciating.

But she realized later that all that time that her mind was free to wander without any interference, and she found herself actually getting bored led to her having one of the most creative periods of her life, and that ended up turning into an experiment on her show, which became the book Board and Brilliant. So what made you

discover that being board actually has a functional purpose. I mean, it was a completely mundane personal experience, uh in the workplace, of course, which was it was a couple of years ago and the podcast was doing well, but you know, I wanted to kill it, right, so I type a person sat down, was like, Okay, just come up with some really big creative ideas. And I really felt like there was nothing going on upstairs. And it was different than writer's block, because I've had that before where you

just you know, wait for the muse. This felt like there was sand in my brain. And so I started to think back, like, wait a minute, when was the last time I had good ideas? And it was really sort of you know, moments before I had kids and I used to take long showers, or I used to stare out the window of the car, or i'd take the subway ride. Um, And now I realized all those little cracks in my day, all those moments when I used to space out and like think of weird ideas.

Now of course I was looking at my phone. There was not a single moment that I didn't take, whether it was waiting in line for coffee or waiting for my kids at school or whatever, that I wasn't looking at my phone, and so it started to make me think like, huh, well, what actually happens in our brains when we allow it to be bored? Or even more importantly,

what happens if we never get bored? Is that like we're always told that only boring people get bored, but actually maybe it's not such a great thing to never experience boredom. Yeah, so what does happen in our minds when we get bored? Well, it's super cool actually, And we are at this amazing moment in neuroscience where they're starting to understand when what's going on when the mind begins to wander, And it turns out you ignite a network in your brain called the default mode. Uh. Some

scientists refer to it actually as the imagination network. And this is where we do our most original thinking. It's where we take to disparate is and smash it together to create something new. And it's also where we do something that I had never heard of before called autobiographical planning.

And this is where you look back at your life, you take note of the highs and the lows, and you build a personal narrative and then you look forward and you think, well, what are the goals that I want to set, What are the things I want to do next? And how what steps do I need to take to reach those goals? Um So it's super important work, but you can't tap that brain power if you're constantly

tapping a screen. Yeah, it sounds so exciting and productive, which is like the opposite of what we think of as boredom. How do we get ourselves into a place where we can basically allow our minds to wander without any real goal, especially if we have a goal and that's to become more creative and to inspire that kind of thinking totally. So, I mean, I think, you know, like to be clear, when the mind wanders, it can

go to bad places. There is dysphoric mind wondering. That's where you ruminate like tomorrow and I'll be like I should have told you know, said on that podcast, like I should have explained that story or whatever, and you you know, you can't stop be like I should have said that, or you ruminate on something that you should have done. There's also distracted mind wandering, whereas you never

sort of settle into something, you just bounce around. But there's also positive, constructive mind wandering, which is the kind

that we're talking about right here. And my theory, and I've kind of proved it with with some a bunch of people, is that if you know that boredom can have a constructive outcome, if you allow yourself to pass through some of the very uncomfortable, sometimes even painful experiences that it can be to be bored and and allow yourself to follow the thread of an idea, that is when you can reach um, either you're coming up with

a new idea or solving a problem. UM. I think it's being more comfortable with the idea of being bored. And it's kind of funny to even say that because I think, you know, a decade ago, before we had a smartphone, no one would have actually had to say, you know, let's name it, let's talk about boredom, let's

let's make time for boredom, let's celebrate boredom. But I think we're finding that with a lot of human things that we took for granted before, a lot of the technology we have to do those things I contact, for example, conversation UM patients, we're starting to see more and more things that we're just sort of normal human states that have to be um reclaimed because our gadgets simply don't

prioritize them. Yeah, you've brought up technology a couple of times, and how that's filled the cracks in your day when you might have had the time for this thinking. So how do you break away from your phone basically to

get to this boredom time. So what the book Board and Brilliant is based on is a week of challenges that I did with twenty of my listeners a full years ago, where every day they listened to a short little podcast that explains some of the neuroscience, some of the design of the technology, and then we gave them a little newsletter that suggested a little sort of behavior tweak to try and then report back because ironically, we partnered with apps, so we had people reporting how many

minutes a day they were spending on their phone, how many pickups they were on their phone, and we also got thousands of stories from people. And so what we did was just little little changes that we're asking people to make so that they become more purposeful about how they use their technology and more comfortable with the concept of getting bored So, for example, UM, one of the challenges is called delete that app. And the idea is just take the app that's driving you bonkers bananas. I

want you to both think of it right now. Okay, yeah, everybody listening to the app, you know the one, just take it off your phone, just for the day. We're not saying like quit, We're not saying like never put it back on, just for one day. See what it's like not to have Twitter calling out to you to be refreshed or you know, every time you have a thought and you're like, oh, that would be an amazing tweet. Maybe not tweeting it, maybe not sharing it because maybe

it's not good enough. But and if you sat on it for a little while, you'd realize that. So um, So it was really interesting to see how people reacted to that. Um should I ask you, guys, what would be your app? I think I shamed Francesca into doing Yeah you did. I she made me to lead Twitter, um and I did. And it was Twitter. Okay, it was Twitter, and I um, I was having a real Twitter problem. Um, particularly after the election. I was just like super absorbed in news and it wasn't productive or

constructive for me at all. And everything got better when I did that, but I downloaded it again it's back. I don't know, like did I undo? I think that's okay. No, no, no, Like what this is not about is judging or shaming. Like there were some people and I think, like this is part of the self knowledge element, Like there are some people who cannot handle Twitter. And I did have listeners who are like, it's off my phone and it's staying off my phone because I don't like how I

am around it. But there were other people who were like, huh, that was really interesting to see what that was. Like now I'm more aware and I'm okay with it, you know. And and then there were other people who are like, I've decided for one day a month, I'm going to take Twitter off my phone just because I liked how it felt. But I don't want it all the time. I mean, it's kind of like drinking, right, Like there are some people are like, you know what, I just

don't drink. It doesn't agree with me. And there are other people who like to have a glass of wine every night and they're fine with that. Like it's like I don't think the answer is on or off, Like it's not a binary with technology it's about figuring out

where you land on the sort of spectrum. It's about self regulation, it's about making sure that Twitter and all those other awesome things, because they are awesome, but let's make sure that they're helping us and improving our lives as opposed to becoming our task masters, which a lot of times they have become. I mean, look at the president, right. Yeah. So I think about some of the challenges in your book and how they should be really simple, like deleting

an app um, but actually they feel really hard. Like one of them you have is is basically to keep your device out of reach as long as you're in motion, So you shouldn't you shouldn't have your phone really available if you're if you're traveling or walking. And I read that it sounds really simple, and it actually it made me kind of like physically ill, thinking like how would

I walk around without my phone? So sometimes my phone is in my hand when I'm walking from place to place, but it's at least in my pocket, And so I just wonder, like, how did you come up against a lot of resistance when you suggested these things? How did you talk people through it? Like how do you get people to make that leap when our devices are kind of designed to keep us addicted to them. So it's

funny that you mentioned that it sounds really easy. That is the one challenge that always wins over the skeptics, the people who are like, what are you even talking about? This is so not a problem. I just put my phone away asked them to do that challenge. I have had so many people come back to me and be like, oh my god, I was so wrong, in part because we realized that, um, it's it's become a reflex. I had one guy say to me, God, it was just like when I was a smoker, Like he associated he'd

get off the subway, he'd laid a cigarette. Now what do we do we get off the subway, We check our email. It's become a linked habit to so many things in our day, to the point where we don't even know that we're doing it, and we're not even really looking for anything in particular. Um. And that's where you know, for people who are more data minded, that's where our partnership with the apps, I think really made

a difference. So I'll use myself as an example. I had figured that I was checking my phone like thirty times a day. I thought that seemed like a lot, and yeah, I like my phone, um, but no, I was checking nine hundred times a day and I didn't

even realize it. So for me, it's about I don't want this to be a digital detox, because I kind of think those are both, Like, we have to live with this technology and I want to It definitely is makes me more makes it possible for me to be a working mom, frankly, but I want it to be on my terms. So this isn't just a digital detox. Um. You know, it's nice to get away from technology because it makes us feel better, but the whole point of

this was to become more creative. So I'm wondering what you and they listeners who did this with you discovered about your creativity through the boredom. Well, I mean what I got were some amazing stories from things as mundane as like I figured out, you know, how to make something amazing with the leftovers I had stuck in my refrigerator. Too. I figured out how to resolve an issue that I had with someone at work, and you know, the work thing.

I think I've just been sort of on the road with Born and Brilliant book tour, and the theme that I keep hearing is people talking about burnout at work. That the pings, the slack, the email, the all the different HR websites that you have to log into and submit this and that and check whether you got your

review and blah blah blah. It's driving people to the point where they feel like they can't actually do what they've been hired to do, the hard, deep work, whether that is coding or writing reports or whatever it is that they do. People are feeling it. It seems like that the key ingredient and every example is like, you need to create that space where you don't have any goal, where you're you're just kind of aimless. And I wonder if you get any pushback from people who are like,

how could I do that during my work day? For me, the answer was, and you know this isn't for everyone, I joined a silent workspace, um, where you're not allowed to talk, you're not even allowed to eat, and UM, I just now my team knows like I don't get there very off in but when I'm at my silent workspace, like it's resetting the expectations that they can you know, either slack with me or text with me all day long, but they know that like at the end of the day,

that's when I come back with the goods, Like that's when I get my best writing done. Um. And so you know my fantasy. And I did actually hear from one person on the road who told me they have this um that every office space would have like a silent workspace. And you know, and and and we have cafeterias, we have these open space offices. Why don't we have places where people can actually go to do the work

that they cannot do if they are interrupted. Have you seen changes in your work from going to the silent workspace and doing some of these other hacks in your book? I wrote the book there, so yeah, absolutely. I mean I think like I have tried everything, which is I don't know about you guys, but for me, like to write the podcast, I need four hours straight. Like I can get up for like you know, bathroom breaks and snacks, but I need four hours straight. And I just I

have tried to do it in little half hours. They're half hours there. I've tried to write it at my desk when my team members are we work in like this little pod area. It just doesn't work for me. So it's either a flight or it's time in my silent workspace. And that is when I make the stuff

that has the best longevity. When I come up with my like ideas that not every you know, no hot takes are happening, you know, like this is when I actually do the real, the harder where I've come up with ideas that that that are not all over Twitter like they take longer, you can't explain them in a

hundred and forty characters. So for me, I think, you know, it's very much tied up in UM, my livelihood now that I need this time and space because I think it's my point of difference from other um, from other journalists.

So just a final question, what what is the thing since the possible outcomes are so different in the ways that you arrive at them are so different, what's the thing that you hope people get out of reading your book or understanding, you know, doing these challenges, like what's

the ideal place to end up? To me, it's about redeveloping that capacity for patients UM and patients, for yourself patients to know that you might have a thought and then it takes a while, and it might turn into like something super mediocre, but maybe you just need to hang in there and go for a very long, maybe even boring walk, and you might actually get to something outstanding. I think we've become so used to getting a response quickly,

getting our lunch quickly, like everything quick. But actually the one thing our phones and our gadgets cannot give us is more time. And we need to redevelop this capacity to be patient with ourselves and and let ourselves become um better thinkers. It's that simple and that hard. Well, thank you so much for talking to his Venusia. This is really fascinating. Oh you guys, thanks thanks for trying to delete that app. I love that you gave it

a go. Finutia's approach to disconnecting is about moderation, which I really love because I feel like a lot of the digital DTOX literature really pushes people to be extreme.

Like there was this guy Paul Miller who a few years ago he took a whole year off from the Internet and he wrote a weekly column about it, which I guess he didn't the internet somewhere else published it on the Internet for him and his company still paid him, and then a year later he wrote about his experience and it was pretty interesting because in the first few months things went really well. He lost a lot of weight, which was interesting, but he also was really creative. He said,

his editor told him he was writing too much. So clearly like the boardom thing worked for him, right, But then he said after a while, it was really socially isolating. He describes basically a depression that he went into after this digital ty talks for a whole year. And I think again we discount the importance of socializing and communication as part of the creative process, Like there's this whole you need to clear your mind and be alone and

not have any distractions. But I think also being social and communicating is the other half of it. And so that's why kind of like Minutia's more moderate approach, like

she still checked her email. Yeah, she talked about her silent workspace that she goes to, and I really like that she she kind of found what works for her, which was a partial disconnection at least, Like it's helpful for her when she's doing a certain kind of task to not have anybody talking around her, but she doesn't need to completely deprive herself of any access to internet, and you know, she probably allows herself to check email

now and then. And I think you're absolutely right, Like we wouldn't have these technologies if they didn't help us in some way. So to just assume that all we need is freedom from them and then you know, we'll have this creative rebirth. I think it's too simplistic and we should let ourselves off the hook a little bit for liking using the apps we use and you know,

the internet. That's what I've been trying to do some of her disconnecting techniques since we talked to her and so on the subway, I've been trying really hard not to reach my phone, which is really difficult, incredibly, and trying to see where my mind wanders. But it definitely isn't wandering to creative things all the time. Mostly it's like, oh,

what should I be looking at on my phone? Or I don't even know, or people also think you're looking at them weird, like they're not used to seeing your eyes. It's true, we are. We are in a culture now where like you're the weird one if you're not looking at your phone. It's a fun challenge, though I'm gonna keep doing it. Yeah, I, um so, I was kind

of four into this board in place. Very recently, I took my son to the doctor and we ended up having a two and a half hour await in the waiting room because they were like crazy backed up, and I couldn't take out my phone or entertained myself with even like the things I had in my bag, like a newspaper and a magazine, because that would just distract my son and then we'd get in a fight over the phone, and so really I had to focus on

keeping him from driving everyone else in the waiting room crazy, um while I myself couldn't actually zone out and entertain myself. So we did things like walking around the waiting room and reading every piece of like material in the doctor's waiting room about their practice and like CPR, and I would just like read to him off the posters like they were really interesting, or like he would crawl under chairs and crack people up, and then I would have

to go chase after him. And it was an experience that I would have just found purely infuriating on another occasion, But because we had this conversation with him, I was like, oh my god, I'm getting the gift of this boredom time. Like, I'm becoming so creative with how I'm using this time. And it really did feel like it opened up a space in my mind to kind of take in what

was going on around me. Now, I didn't necessarily go home and write a novel after that, but it made me realize that you you can you get these times in your life and you can reframe them as positive if you look at like, Okay, I'm giving my brain rest. I'm not able to look at my phone right now. I have to make the best of the super boring situation. Yeah, it's just kind of nice to experience the world in a different way. Yeah, I just odd myself. Well, let's

do some half big takes half fake takes. If you'd like to give us your half big take, you can call and leave a voicemail at two and two six one seven zero one six. In fact, you can call that hotline and leave us a message about anything you like, like this caller who had something to say about our

recent episode on how the stable job is basically dead. Hi, there, I just listened to the story about the changing American workers the gig economy, and I wonder if the state of workers being well paid and well compensated in this paternalistic company structure didn't contribute to the demise of fed existence these companies. I'm um why I live in California

and the uh some of the pensions are extraordinary. You hear stories anecdotal, of course, for firefighters who on the last three years of their employment they load up their shifts so that they can get this maximum pay for the rest of their lives. And then people are living so much longer. Did they think about that at the end of the war, how much longer people would be living and to be able to pay something out forever. Anyway, my whole statement about life is it's just not that simple.

So I think your author made some very good point about why this came about, But it's just not that simple. There are larger forces at work. I enjoyed your show. It's the first time I listened to it. Thanks very much, and I'm Chris from Auburn, California. Byebye, Becca. What is your half big take this week? So my half big take is about how I have a pretty high bar for when I will engage with a post on Facebook. Okay,

let's hear more. Well, people post things on Facebook and they beckon you to respond, and often, you know, I get that feeling, got that itch, but I will only respond. I don't know what the bar is, but there are just so many notifications if you do respond, because if you respond, then you get notifications at anytime anyone else responds,

anytime anyone else engages with the post. I've in fact, engaged with the Facebook post and then deleted my response because you know, you can just unchecked those notifications, can you. I don't know. It's very confusing. It does evolve a fair amount of clicking. I think my bar for posting on social media is pretty high in general, and responding

is even higher. So do you find yourself like tempted to engage with the post and then you're like, I'm not gonna do this because it's going to ruin the rest of my day. So when someone posts a cute baby picture, you're not like, oh, I was growing up so far I'd give it a like. I'm very generous with likes and faves because those are yeah, yeah, and leave. So I think that's another side. Half bake, take it cheap there's no reason not like something comments I'm making

the money simple with my hands. Well, as a person with a kid, I can say that I feel obligated to remark on other people's cute kids because you need to hear about how your kids are, your kid is. It's a part of being a parent. I feel really bad. Yeah, tell people their kids are cute, and then disabled the notification. There are three hafache takes in this take. Yeah, frantistico,

it's your half baked take. Um, we've done various hafae takes about coffee before, but mine is about h finding a coffee shop where the barista will at least look at you with a smile of acknowledgment. So, like, I go into the same coffee shop every morning and I get a coffee and they happen to know my order, which is lovely and it makes me feel very special.

But I have like started going to coffee shops and stopped going there because after a year of going there and ordering the exact same thing every morning, they didn't even give me that look of recognition. Like, I'm not asking for you to memorize my order. It's nice, Certainly you don't have to know my name, but just exchange a look with me that shows that this is not the first time you've ever seen me in your life, Like we're all living in this world together, and make

it a little easier. Is like, you don't need to know my order, but smile. Please give me a look of recognition, do a nod. Not telling people to smile. You know I would never do that. That is not us. Game plan does not tell yeh, I just I recently that was just so satisfying. Had the barrista at the coffee shop knew the order and never happened to me

in my life feels so good, doesn't it? It really did. Yeah, my my place that I go to um because it's a transitional time of year, they know that I'm switching between hot and iced versions of my order, so they just say hot or rice. They know it's a soy latte. So great, don't put that in. This has been have big takes, hath baked takes. Thank you for listening to game Plan. You can find me on Twitter at Francesca Today and you can find me on Twitter at RZ Greenfield.

As always, you can call into our hotline at two on two six seven zero one six six, Leave us a message, tell us about your half baked takes or any other opinions you have. You might play it on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter if you want to hear from us throughout the week and get cool extras um. You can do that just by going to Bloomberg dot com slash newsletters and checking game Plan. If you like the show, please head on over to Apple Podcasts or

every listen and rate and review and subscribe. I check it a lot on This show is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Henrickson, head of podcast is Me See you next week. Bye. If you're like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about how you can get more done at work. But what if instead of doing more work, we did less work and just relaxed. This is game Plan. No sorry, I went out. Script