The Insight for Speed Thinking
April 25, 2008
Speed thinking - Discovering Speed thinking
This is my first blog in what I hope will be a fruitful and productive adventure. It is exciting and scary letting go of a successful creative thinking and innovation business I have run for the past five years called IdeaSpace (www.ideaspace.com.au). But I believe that I have discovered a new way of thinking that is perfectly adapted to the internet paced world that we live in. I have called this Speed Thinking.
The insight for Speed Thinking came from my workshops with business people and my graduate students. In attempting to work through more material I kept giving participants in my workshops less and less time to complete a task. Paradoxically it seemed to have no detrimental effect on the quality and quantity of their performance. In fact, if anything the originality of their responses appeared to be enhanced. I was intrigued by this phenomenon and wondered what the natural limit might be.
Through trial and error, I have discovered that if you set participants an everyday challenge, with a two minute time-limit and you ask them to create at least nine different responses then often magic happens. People are often amazed at their responses—‘where did that come from they exclaim’.
As the clock ticks away people are totally focused on the task at hand and are immersed in the challenge. They are right in the moment with no sense of evaluating their responses. New ideas, solutions or decisions pour out in a stream of consciousness. It appears that they enter their own zone of high performance (hence the name The Speed Thinking Zone) much like sportspeople who for the briefest of moments can do anything they want seemingly at will.
This Speed Thinking experience also tends to create a natural high. Participants talk about having a as their creativity is unlocked. This is consistent with the findings of Pronin & Wagner (Psychological Science, Volume 17, Number 9, 2006), for example, who found what they called Manic Thinking had a positive effect on respondent’s mood.
My vision of The Speed Thinking Zone is that together we can create a better understanding of the theory and practice of Speed Thinking so that we can all achieve more in less time and as a result lead happier and more rewarding lives.
Dr. Ken Hudson.
Founder & Chief Starter
The Speed Thinking Zone (www.thespeedthinkingzone.com)
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