Get It Right

In this chapter, we’ve looked at some of the properties of R-mode thinking. Your R-mode processes are subtle and cannot be forced into action.

Yet these ways of thinking are vital to achieving a balanced, full-throttle approach to problem solving and creativity. You don’t want to focus on R-mode at the exclusion of L-mode, and you don’t want to continue to focus on L-mode to the exclusion of R-mode. Instead, you want to structure your learning and thinking to support an R-mode to L-mode flow.

Start to pick up on subtle clues, and begin to harvest your R-mode’s existing output. Give your R-mode processes more of a chance to function using techniques such as morning pages, writing, and non-goal-directed thinking time (aka walking).

Finally, since memory is a frail and expensive mechanism, be prepared to write down the gems of insight that your R-mode may deliver, whenever—and wherever—that may be.

Next Actions

New Habits

• Do morning pages for at least two weeks.
• Hone a quick wit. Look for connections or analogies between unrelated things.
• Involve more senses when faced with a tricky problem. What works best for you?
• Read something different from your usual material, for example, fiction, not science fiction, and so on.
• Try a different genre of movie, vacation, music, or coffee.
• Order something you’ve never had at your favorite restaurant.
• Turn each problem around. What can you learn from the reverse?

Try This

• Deliberately vary your morning routine or other consistent habit.
• Hold a design session using Lego blocks or office supplies.^[74]
• Take a class or start a hobby that involves more R-mode processing. Work on it daily.
• Use the buddy system: have a buddy help keep you motivated, and discuss your progress.
• Think of a metaphor, or set of metaphors, that would largely describe your current project (it may be helpful to think in terms of something very tangible). Try to come up with a few jokes about it using metaphor or exaggeration.
• Look at experts you know. What “quirky” habits now make more sense to you?
• What words can you add to your workplace lexicon?

Footnotes

[49]

Improving Vocabulary Acquisition with Multisensory Instruction [DSZ07].

[50]

Invented by Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham, each index card describes a class, its responsibility, and any collaborators. CRC cards are a good start at looking at the dynamic properties of a system, not the static (as in a UML class diagram).

[51]

Seen any good shrinking circles lately? (See Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions [Abb07].)

[52]

See the Education Resources Information Center at http://eric.ed.gov.

[53]

See, for example, The Neuroscientific Perspective in Second Language Acquisition Research [Dan94].

[54]

See http://www.rogerr.com/galin/.

[55]

The Emergence of Abstract Representations in Dyad Problem Solving [Sch95]. Thanks to June Kim for this pointer and summary.

[56]

See Conscious/Subconscious Interaction in a Creative Act [GP81].

[57]

See his article “Bisociation in Creation” included in The Creativity Question [RH76]. Thanks to Steph Thompson for this information. Koestler had some other unsettling beliefs and was accused of violent crimes against women. Genius and madness are often close companions it seems.

[58]

See PO: a Device for Successful Thinking [De 72] for more.

[59]

Modern greeting cards have probably inured us to this sort of comparison; it likely had far greater impact in Shakespeare’s day.

[60]

Personally, I suspect that’s the driving reason why it hasn’t been adopted as widely.

[61]

Acquisition of Procedural Knowledge About a Pattern of Stimuli That Cannot Be Articulated [Lew88].

[62]

Described in The Einstein Factor: A Proven New Method for Increasing Your Intelligence [WP96]; evidence that this technique works is largely anecdotal, but that’s somewhat to be expected in this case.

[63]

Cited in Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind [Smi04]; thanks to Linda Rising for suggesting it.

[64]

Thanks to several readers for suggesting this and to June Kim for this summary.

[65]

On the Web at http://www.labyrinthsociety.org.

[66]

Thanks to June Kim for suggesting this example.

[67]

Reibadailty [Raw99].

[68]

A middle name: “the.”

[69]

Lowercase o, not the database vendor.

[70]

See http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies.

[71]

See my IEEE article “Imaginate” Imaginate [HT04].

[72]

Described in Brush Up Your Shakespeare! [Mac00].

[73]

See http://www.physorg.com/news85664210.html for details.

[74]

You get extra credit if you can use a red stapler.

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