Genius: A few Power Naps Away?

Introduction

At the risk of sounding over dramatic, creativity is dying. Now if experts are to be believed this is a major issue, ideas are profitable things:

“CEOs say creativity is the #1 factor for future success.” – IBM

“Creativity is or is related to 9 of the top 10 skills that global executives say is essential for 2020 and beyond.”– World Economic Forum

“According to the survey 54% of the hindrance to company growth can be associated with a lack of generation of new usable ideas” – BCG Global Innovation Survey

In “The Creativity Crisis ” analysts stated that “ fluid original thinking in the workplace has been on a decline since the 20th century.

Employees are generating not only fewer ideas or solutions to open-ended questions or challenges, but also fewer unusual or unique ideas than those in preceding decades”.

There are fears in all fields that workers are finding it increasingly difficult to gain inspiration and develop innovative ideas.

Now it all sounds doom and gloom but it seems there's a solution that’s surprisingly simple and effective.

What if I told you the fix to the workplace creativity crisis should be taking a nap? Not convinced?

Well, there’s science to back it up I promise, in the meantime have a look at these famous examples of people napping on the job.

Microscopic Dreams

Watson

Until Dr James Watson saw a winding flight of stairs in a fantasy in 1953, nobody had fostered the possibility of a twofold helix twisting design for our DNA.

The game changed that evening, when Watson took a nap and saw it, proceeding to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.

Kekule

Kekule, the German scientific expert who found the ring design of benzene is viewed as one of the chief authors of present day natural science.

Kekule says he had finished work and drifted off to sleep at his desk. He saw molecules spinning and moving before his eyes.

The molecules then, at that point, started to reassemble themselves into long lines that appeared to move about in a snake like movement. As he watched the snake dance, the vision advanced until the snake ate up its own tail.

Bogey Tales

Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevensons dream-prompted noises woke his significant other, Fanny, who then woke him up accordingly.

Surprised, he told her, "Why’d you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale."

The circumstance took a horrendous turn when Fanny thought the primary draft of the story was garbage and threw it out.

Stevenson quickly rewrote the 30,000 word story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in three-days.

It wound up selling so well that the book lifted the Stevenson's into the clear financially.