Have you ever had a task or a project that you so badly want to complete, but can’t seem to move forward because you’ve run out of ideas?

That can be quite a stressful time. With the deadline looming and pressure mounting, what are you supposed to do?

The first – and usual – reaction of many is to double down. You see no other way to get this done. So you spend more overtime hours and sleepless nights, stressed all the way and probably nearing your wits’ end.

Or how about…

Take leave from it all, and do something else that is totally unrelated to what you’re stressing over?

Crazy right? But what if I told you that the idea actually came from a genius named Albert Einstein, who used the same method to get himself mentally unstuck from the big mathematical problems he was dealing with at work.

Now you’re interested.

Einstein termed this as combinatory play, or the “act of opening up one mental channel by dabbling in another”.

In other words, you do two completely unrelated activities and the mental effort you used up in doing both helps you generate new ideas, giving you fresh perspective on problems you have and helping you come up with creative solutions.

In Einstein’s case, he was famous for his combinatory play of playing the violin everytime he would get stuck on solving a mathematical problem.

Rather than bang his head on the wall, he chose to do something he not only enjoyed, but made him more productive at work.

Come to think of it, some of us could be doing this technique to deal with projects at work, only we were afraid of being judged as “lazy” or “uncommitted” at work.

Then again, it’s all in the mind, isn’t it?

What do you think of the combinatory play method to inspire creativity and deal with mental fatigue? Do you use it? What’s your combinatory play?

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