CHAPTER 5
THE POWER OF THE BLUE SKY
To “blue-sky” means to stare out at the sky. Whether it is clear blue and featureless, whether there are clouds slowly passing by, or even if it is gray and overcast or black and starry, the sky offers a unique canvas upon which to rest your gaze. There is no need to focus hard, there are no distracting details, yet it’s a visual scene of enormous potential.
The act of blue-skying is a powerful, creative intellectual undertaking. It allows the mind to work on problems, ideas, and opportunities that the busy-ness of the day-to-day tends to obscure. Blue-skying is one of the major benefits of slow, and therefore represents one of the major watersheds in any individual’s destiny, since it is the act of blue-skying that allows people to do what needs to be done most: to continue to innovate and excel in a way that fosters ongoing growth and success. Some people have the time for this; most don’t.
There is enormous value in taking your eyes away from work and focusing them on the sky, in the name of productivity, not of work avoidance. Leisure by itself is nice, and valuable, but the theme of this book is about using slow to get further ahead, which means, finding ways to advance, by taking time away from the momentum of “now,” and applying it to the deeper possibilities of the future.
In Chapter 2, I described numerous examples and scenarios in which people feel the need to stay in the loop for fear of being left out. In Chapter 3, I introduced the term ambient momentum to highlight the atmosphere of speed that perpetuates the workplace and contributes to the fogging of creative, strategic thought. Blue-skying is the antithesis to both of these afflictions.
Take elevators, for example. A person who travels in an elevator “solo,” that is to say not engaged in conversation with anyone else in the car, faces a full 45 seconds or so of idleness between the time he presses his floor button and the time of his arrival. He enters a void of inactivity: 45 seconds with no external stimulation. This is anathema to the speed-minded person. So he reaches quickly for his wireless PDA. What if he doesn’t have one yet? No worry. He can instead check to see if his cell phone has reception. Failing that, he can read the elevator’s own in-car television monitor to get the latest headlines, stock prices, and ads. Anything to fill that void. What this elevator passenger is doing is filling up on high-satisfaction, low-value intellectual stimuli. He’s filling his mind up with the activity of busy-ness brought on by the ambient momentum of his high-speed life. Such activities satisfy a need, but do little for overall productivity.
A 45-second elevator ride is a perfect place to do what people used to do before wireless PDAs, cell phones, or elevator TV ever existed: stare at their shoes and think about something. Think about what? Well, whatever comes to mind. In Chapter 2, I mentioned the seven-second rule, which is useful during meetings to find out if anyone has a question or a comment. Seven seconds is a long time to wait, but that’s how long it takes for people to process, question, and then summon the courage and energy to verbalize. It takes time for individual thoughts and ideas to realize that they might have a chance to step forward from the recesses of the brain and express themselves. Thoughts that might save time, create new opportunities, or generally do good things—they’re all in there. But every time they try to make themselves known, they’re brushed aside by another fast-moving “immediacy.” These ideas find little opportunity to make themselves known in our busy world, and collectively we run the risk of losing them forever.
Physiologically, the reason blue-skying is called what it’s called is because letting your eyes come to rest while they are open is actually quite difficult. The eye and the entire optical sensory system are programmed to move ceaselessly from object to object. Most people are unaware of just how many times per second their eyes move from one item to another, pulling in thousands upon thousands of bits of information to be processed and prioritized by the brain. It truly is fantastic. There are way too many distractions in a typical workplace for blue-skying to occur.
Blue-skying requires a visual panorama that can encompass the entire field of view, including your highly sensitive peripheral vision and that commands soft focus, not hard focus. An actual blue sky is the easiest and most obvious choice, but there are others:
• Moving water, as in a fountain, stream, or lake
• A sunset or sunrise (assuming you do not stare straight into it)
• A busy city street full of anonymous, walking people
• The steam rising from a cup of coffee or tea
• The act of staring out of the window of your train or bus, or even out of a car window (for all but the driver)
Tips for Helping You Choose to Blue-Sky Rather Than Read E-mail
• Remember that great ideas need a few seconds to “warm up and come forward.”
• Remember that great ideas are fleeting. If they’re not captured now, they may be lost forever.
• Remember that problems are best solved by mentally letting go of them.
• Remember that email can and will wait.
• Consider your blue-skying time to be on par with being in a meeting with a customer. Would you interrupt a conversation to take a call or read an email? (Hopefully not.)
• Remember your success is based on your ability to influence people. That comes from deep within.
• Remember that blue-skying also sets you on a path for healthy sleep, which is the single greatest ingredient for top productivity.
• Remember that the human body and mind need refreshment in order to work at peak.
A second form of blue-skying is also available when you create a soft-focus visual panorama through the physical preoccupation of the rest of the body: Jogging and swimming are good examples, and so are using an exercise bike or treadmill (so long as you do not read or watch TV while doing it). Outdoor cycling is not an effective blue-sky technique, since the eyes and mind need to be on constant lookout for danger.
It is probably obvious by now that one of the central tenets of this book is this: Slowing down long enough to stare at the sky presents greater benefit for personal success in both the short and long term than does attending to more immediate visual priorities. That’s indeed the theme of this battle. People are hesitant to give themselves permission to blue-sky. It’s alien to the event-to-event mentality they have been conditioned to accept. Getting permission to blue-sky is difficult enough when you have something to think about. But what if you do not know what blue-skying will bring you? How can you hope to justify it then? To those people I offer the image of a spider spinning a web. When a spider chooses a place to spin a web, the first line of web she produces does nothing. No creature will be caught by a single line of thread. The same applies for the second line she produces, and the third, and the next 100. At this point she has not created a structure strong enough to trap her next meal, just feeder lines that drift in the air currents until they find something solid to stick to. Should she continue? Yes. Although a quickly honed collection of strands will do nothing except exhaust her, it becomes the foundation for a full web that itself can only come about through slow, diligent effort. Yet for this spider, even when she has finished her web with its hundreds of strands and thousands of connections, she will still not be sure exactly what it might catch—what the next great “thing” will be. But she knows it will be something, because something always comes along. Thus it is with blue-skying. Sometimes the right thought pops up immediately. Sometimes, however, you have to let your mind get used to its new liberty; to get in shape, as it were for this newfound opportunity to be creative. Even when no profound thoughts appear, there will still be positive action happening below the surface: synapses connecting, patterns emerging, the thought process flourishing.
A PRESCRIPTION FOR TENNIS
Let me tell you a story: I was attending an event with a team of chartered accountants once, when I was approached by a student who was in the midst of studying for an exam that would count towards his professional qualifications. He was exhausted. He looked exhausted, he did not smile, and he did not even want to be at the convention. This is sad, because professional conventions can be (and should be) prime learning and networking opportunities. But because of the amount of studying he still had to do, all he was aware of while attending the event was the study time he was losing. This student asked me for any tips and tricks I might have for improving his study habits. He was falling asleep too much, he said, and the things he was studying were just not staying in his head.
I asked him what he used to do for fun. What sports or activities did he once enjoy? His answer was tennis, and I could tell it was true. For a brief second, his eyes lit up as he remembered his days on the court. So as a “prescription” I told him to go out and play tennis for an hour each day, at a suitable time for his studies, for instance, between chapters. I suggested he slow down the pace of his studies and re-insert his favorite sport into his routine. Naturally, he was shocked at the thought of abandoning his books for something that was actually fun, until I redefined the act of playing tennis not as an avoidance of work but a chance instead for the knowledge to seep in and stay.
“Have you ever watered a plant or vegetable garden?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he said.
“Well,” I continued, “when you see the water start to pool on the top of the soil, do you keep on pouring?”
“No,” he replied, “I let it drain in.”
“Why?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to keep on pouring?”
“No,” he retorted, “it would just run away over the sides. You have to pour slowly to keep the water in, and stop when it’s enough.”
“Well, there, you are,” I said. “Go play tennis.”
He did well on his exams, by the way, and called me to say thanks. In terms of blue-skying opportunities, racquet sports are among the best. They therefore become a third category for you to consider. They are physical and aerobic, like those in the second category (jogging, exercise bike, etc.) but rather than incorporating a vague visual field, they incorporate a distinctly specific visual stimulus, which involves following a ball around a court. A stringent focus on the ball eliminates all other visual distractions from the field of view. Creative thought is free to roam amidst the eustress of the game. As one squash player once told me, “When you are chasing that little ball around the court, nothing else exists in the world, save for that little ball.”
So if you’re looking for a more socially acceptable opportunity to blue-sky and let your creative mind run free, one that the working world is more familiar with and therefore more accepting of, consider joining a local lunchtime league for a half-hour game of squash, racquetball, tennis, ping pong, badminton, or even volleyball. Just remember to take a pen and paper, a voice recorder, or your cell phone with you to get those good ideas down when they come. Because they will, if you let them.
I LIKE COFFEE . . .
One of the greatest opportunities for progress through blue-skying can be found within a ritual that has been part of life for over 500 years: taking coffee at a coffee house. Coffee has proven itself over the centuries as a productive tool for cooling down since it provides the ultimate social drink for business.
• It does not impair judgment like alcohol does; in fact, it sharpens the mind through its primary active ingredient, caffeine.
• It is a social drink that can be enjoyed by friends, clients, and business partners.
• It is easily accessible and quite inexpensive.
Coffee is so popular that it is now recognized as the second most traded legal commodity on earth, after oil and petroleum products.
1It is said that when coffee first became available in 16th-century Europe, its intellect-sharpening properties were not enthusiastically received by the church, which is not surprising given that the church of those days was an organization whose power was rooted strongly in discouraging creative thought and interpretation among its “client base.” Coffee was referred to by some Christians as “the devil’s drink.” In Rome, a sample of coffee was presented to Pope Vincent III, who had decided to taste it before banishing it. However, as the story goes, upon taking his first sip, he was won over, and he actually baptized it instead.
Coffee, when taken at a coffee house or coffee shop represents another socially acceptable opportunity for blue-skying when it is performed correctly, since it gives the partakers a focal point beyond themselves and their business upon which to reflect for 10 minutes or so. Taking coffee as a blue-skying exercise is best defined by what it is
NOT:
• It does NOT happen when you read the paper (or any other reading material) while having coffee. Granted, a coffee break at a coffee shop, which includes reading a newspaper or reviewing your work is still more relaxing than straight-out working at the desk and may provide an opportunity to “hide” undisturbed, but it does not open the door to the higher-level mental creativity of blue-skying. It is just work transferred to another location. Nice, yes; recommended, yes; but it is not blue-skying.
• It is NOT the coffee you have at your desk. Coffee at your desk is coffee at your desk. A necessary pick-me-up but your desk is not the right location for anything other than the work of the immediate.
• It is NOT the coffee you have in the car, if you are driving.
Instead, coffee-shop blue-skying is about setting the stage for liberating the mind, whether you take your coffee alone, or with others (clients, colleagues, or managers).
For many coffee-shop customers, blue-skying is accelerated through the positive sense of control that comes from placing the order itself. This may sound strange, but it is one of the many reasons for the success of the Starbucks chain. CEO Howard Schultz stated that in creating his coffee-shop empire he wanted to create not just a place to get coffee, but an experience. Interestingly, Mr. Schultz is also on record for saying, “I’m not a big emailer … it’s a crutch that hinders person-to-person communication.”
2To the uninitiated ear, a large, multi-feature order such as a “grande low-fat, extra-hot, double-foam, half-sweet soy mocha latté” may sound excessive, especially when the same order is echoed back by the employee behind the counter, as if confirming a captain’s order on the bridge of a ship. It’s a far cry from “coffee, black.” But within these minor theatrics, lies a great deal of psychology. The employee—the barista—is first and foremost making sure the order is correct, a fundamental element of establishing customer satisfaction and loyalty. But beyond that, the choice, delivery, and acceptance of such a complex order (how does one measure double foam, exactly?) also helps deliver a dose of esteem to the customer.
Now that may sound silly, psychoanalyzing the transactions of a coffee shop down to elements of self-esteem, but take a moment to place this ritual within the context of the high-speed world outside, where control over time and self-determination are the first things to be wrested away from the average hard-working person. The need for esteem is an essential building-block of self-identity. All humans need to feel it. It is estimated that there are 19,000 possible variations of drinks that can be created from a Starbucks menu, enough to satisfy the specific esteem requirements of each customer, who may not even realize, on a conscious level at least, just how rare it has become to exert such control on a daily basis. By delivering the perfect drink, served at the perfect temperature, in clean, consistent, recognizable surroundings, Starbucks and coffee shops like it help reinforce this sense of esteem, which comforts and satisfies the customer. This makes the customer feel good, of course, which allows the blue-skying process to continue.
A person who sets up her laptop or unpacks her notes at a coffee shop is not fully partaking in the blue-skying process, since her mind is not free to roam—it is looking at notes, But she will still foster great creativity by having stepped away from the ambient momentum of her workplace, replacing it with a neutral noise, the white noise of other people’s conversations. This isolates her and gives her a zone of creative space. Access to reliable Wi-Fi systems, of course, makes it easier than ever to focus and to do business away from the office. So all in all it’s a productive, cool approach to getting work done.
The best approach to blue-skying, however, still has to be when a person just sits still and either watches other people or watched the steam rise from her coffee. This is the antithesis of the high-speed work ethic, of course, but it is where ideas for great new developments are born. It’s where problems get solved. Though the temptation is to bring the laptop along, I strongly believe that at least once a week, every busy person should sit down, order a coffee (or tea, or low-sugar soft drink), and just stare into the middle distance.
I LIKE TEA…
Tea, similarly is a refreshment whose benefits go well beyond its actual ingredients and move quite definitively into the beneficial aspects of slow. In Japan, the preparing and pouring of tea is considered a high art form, called chaji, and great honor is found in being the teishu, the house master and tea pourer. The value of chaji is not so much in the tea itself, of course. The ceremony gives recognition to the fact that every human encounter is a singular occasion that will never recur. Every aspect of the tea and the ceremony is relished not just for the tea itself, but for what it gives the participants. The classic British cup of tea, similarly, presents most of its value outside of the pot. The biggest selling brand of tea in the UK is PG Tips, a basic, strong blend, made by a subsidiary of Unilever. But it is the ritual that makes British tea what it is: Boiling the water means you have to have a kettle, which means you are somewhere that people can sit down and feel safe, if just for a few minutes.
People pause to enjoy their tea. They slow down just long enough to take in a cup or two. They gather their thoughts, they talk. Tea is used to help people collect themselves after a harrowing experience—not because of any healing properties in the tea itself, necessarily, but those found in the ritual.
All of this may seem like a lot of words to describe coffee and tea breaks, but these two products typify, both literally and figuratively, the value of slow in a high-speed world. They also make blue-skying more accessible.
I LIKE CAUSING CREATIVITY
In Chapter 1, we met the wireless PDA owner who was able to get all of his Monday work done on the train, and then pretend it was Tuesday. I mentioned at that point that he would probably have been better off spending his train ride staring out the window, and I meant it.
Previously in this chapter I have attempted to illustrate the value of staring at your shoes during an elevator ride and staring at your coffee in a coffee shop. The idea behind all of these points is this: It takes time for creative thought to step out of the box into which high-speed action has pushed it.
It’s hard to say what types of things will come to you when you let your mind relax during blue-skying opportunities. Your ideas might lead to the invention of the next great widget, or they might form the central message of an upcoming presentation. Perhaps they’ll be the plans for supper for the next four nights. Your mind knows what it wants to talk about. Whatever that is, it’s essential that you first let these ideas come out and then store them somewhere—somewhere, permanent—on paper, for example. And here’s the best part and the central point about blue-skying: The more you do it, the more ideas will come.
If you think about the times in your life when you’ve suffered through a cold or perhaps allergies, you’ve probably been amazed at the speed and efficiency by which congested sinuses refill with even more disgusting mucus just moments after you have blown your nose. Who would have thought there would be a life lesson in that? Well, there is. Because a creative brain works in much the same fashion, except you use a pen and paper (or a PDA) to receive the results, rather than a Kleenex. The more good ideas you liberate from the short-term memory area of your brain, the more space you make for new creative ideas to take their place, and they will.
The key words here are “liberate” and “from.” When ideas are forced to remain where they are, in short-term memory, your creative mind becomes stuffed. It is only when you get them out of there that new ideas can pour forth. Hence the next lesson in the art of blue-skying after actually giving yourself permission to do it, is to keep the ideas coming, simply by receiving them and recording them elsewhere. Flush them out. And do it regularly. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. And the more opportunity you give to yourself and your future.
Some people might think that encouraging a free flow of ideas in this way is overdoing it. They think that too much creativity, like too much preparation, can stand in the way of actually getting things done. But I disagree, and I disagree as someone who likes to see things get done. I base my argument solidly on the shoulders of all the project managers of the world. Because, in the world of project management, success is best reached through thorough planning. Thorough planning is perfected by discipline. Even when he feels great pressure to get started on the project, the experienced project manager must recognize the greater value in going slowly at this point, rather than rushing ahead. For as he writes out the future life story of the project, on paper or on screen, he envisions it, and his thoughts come out. First, they realistically quantify the elements and actions that go into a project, but then, second, they allow room for other thoughts, for new and better ideas to follow. Though project management might seem to be an analytical process, whereas blue-skying is more synthetic and less consciously purposeful, they have in common this essential principle: Creativity comes from allowing thoughts to appear in the short-term memory area of the mind, at which point they must be flushed out and preserved. Thoughts can’t appear in the mind if other thoughts are occupying that space. So, by allowing the thoughts to come forward where they can be captured and recorded, the creative process continues. Slowing down in this fashion works for the practical needs of the time-pressed project manager, just as it can work for everyone.
COMMUTING IN
The commute in to work is a great opportunity for blue-skying. This is why, in Chapter 1, I picked on the guy who owned the wireless PDA. I think there’s more value in blue-skying than in working according to Parkinson’s Law. On the one hand, the commute presents the same opportunities as the coffee shop and the fountain mentioned earlier in this chapter. The visual vagueness of the passing scenery allows the mind to drift and do its creative thing. This is most obvious for those who commute passively, e.g., by train, bus, or as a car passenger, but it applies also to those who drive. It is possible for experienced drivers to both drive and blue-sky at the same time. All it requires is that the driver not use the radio or cell phone.
Blue-skying during the commute not only allows for creative thought to occur, it also contributes greatly to stress management. For most professionals it’s a given that negative stress will build up over the day to come. (This, of course, depends on how much they choose to
cool down during the day.) The more that stress can be alleviated or tempered during the commute in, the better able your mind and body will be to both receive and process additional stressors, and implement
slow techniques as the day continues. Put another way, those who arrive at the office already stressed, will find their day getting correspondingly worse. Your commute in is a buffer, and should be used as such.
• If you travel by mass transit, even if it is packed full, consider using a CD player or MP3 that plays your favorite kind of music or a spoken-word book as an alternative to doing work or reading. Let the player take you away inside a cone of isolation for the duration of the trip. Yes, you could use that time to work, but my suggestion is that there is greater value (and potential for better work once at the office) by giving yourself this blue-sky oasis at this most stressful of times.
• If you drive, let the traffic be what it will be. No one has ever cleared a traffic jam by shouting at it. If you are running late, call ahead, let them know, and then put your favorite music or a spoken-word book onto your sound system. Though, as a driver, you can’t afford to blue-sky as much as a passenger might, you can still cocoon yourself inside your private, acoustically pleasant car interior, which will help you arrive at the office in much better shape.
COMMUTING HOME
The ride home offers similar opportunities for creativity and stress management, the most important of which is the build-up towards healthy sleep. Healthy sleep doesn’t just happen overnight. Sleep is an altered state of consciousness brought on by an influx of hormones in the blood. The release of these hormones starts in late afternoon, around 4:00 p.m., and builds up over the next six hours. Tasks that force the body against this natural progression merely end up diluting these sleep chemicals, resulting in a reduced quality of sleep throughout the night. Thus, there is heightened value in actually relaxing and blue-skying on the way home—staring out the window of the train, or enjoying the drive even in clogged traffic by listening to music or spoken-word books. The ride home, in my opinion, is not the place to do more work on the phone, PDA, or laptop. Work is done. It stopped when you left the building. Life happens now, and a successful sleep cycle starts its incubation now.
A lot of people argue with me on this point, and they’re welcome to. It’s a contentious issue. My conviction seems to go against the mainstream idea that to be “on” all the time is the single pathway to success. But I believe that a comfortable blue-skying commute home is valuable to people through creativity and chemistry. It represents a conscious knowledge of the value of time and effort, which outshines reactionism and pays greater dividends.
KEY POINTS TO TAKE AWAY
• To blue-sky means to stare out at the sky and to let your eyes come to rest while still keeping them open.
• Even when no profound thoughts appear there is still positive action happening below the surface.
• It takes practice for the brain to feel allowed to create in this way.
• One type of blue-skying involves staring at a vague visual field, such as the sky or the ripples of water in a fountain.
• A second type of blue-skying can be achieved through physical preoccupation of the rest of the body, such as jogging, for example, or swimming.
• Racquet sports are a third and very effective blue-skying technique.
• The rituals involved in taking coffee and tea are also excellent blue-skying techniques.
• Creativity comes from freeing your ideas from your short-term working memory. The more you do this, the more ideas will come.
• Project management is a real-world example of how blue-skying can reinforce clarity and creativity for projects of any size.
• Blue-skying on the commute to work offers a far better use of time than doing additional work.
• Blue-skying on the commute home allows for the buildup of healthy sleep chemicals in the bloodstream, which helps ensure top-quality productivity the following day.
HOW TO COOL DOWN
Downtime
• When you are in an elevator, do you stare at the walls or reach for your PDA or cell phone?
• Why?
• What would happen if you were NOT to reach for it?
• Are you willing to give it a try?
Blue-Skying (Type 1)
• Do you ever schedule time to sit and blue-sky?
• If yes, what has it done for you?
• If no, why not?
Blue-Skying (Type 2)
• What kinds of aerobic sports do you enjoy?
• How many days a week do you get to enjoy them?
• What do you do with your eyes while exercising (e.g., reading or blue-skying)?
Blue-Skying (Type 3)
• Have you ever played racquet sports?
• How many executives (or people in higher positions than yours) do you know who play?
Coffee
• Have you ever ordered a coffee and enjoyed it without doing work at the same time?
Creativity
• How do you come up with your creative ideas and solutions?
• Which mentors do you have who could share their secrets for creativity?
Commuting and Sleep
• What is your preferred activity during the commute in?
• Why did you choose this?
• What does it do for you?
• What is your preferred activity during the commute home?
• Why did you choose this?
• What does it do for you?
• How well do you sleep at night?
• To what can you attribute your good/bad sleep?
1 Source: International Coffee Organization
THE GREATEST PROGRESS
IS GAINED THROUGH REVISITING
THE HUMBLEST ACTIONS.