One of the founding fathers of Psychology, William James, was often accused of being absent-minded to which he responded that he was really just present-minded to his own thoughts. Should mind wandering be considered a cognitive catastrophe or might there be some benefits floating along with it?

People spend around half their lives drifting about in their minds, and thinking less about the tasks currently at hand. A mind is a skilled wanderer. Which one of us while writing a report or doing the dishes hasn’t suddenly began thinking about life and its many mysteries? What’s important is not that the mind wanders, that’s a fact we’re all aware of. The question is why, when, for how long and are there any personal rewards?

According to Kaufman and Singer who have explored this concept in depth, personal rewards of mind wandering, some immediate and some in the future, include self- awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation, memory consolidation, autobiographical planning, goal driven thought, future planning, retrieval of deeply personal memories, reflective consideration of the meaning of events and experiences, simulating the perspective of another person, evaluating the implications of self and others’ emotional reactions, moral reasoning, and reflective compassion. A treasure of insight, right?

So apparently allowing your mind to wander from time to time is crucial for one’s creative process. Referring to those Aha! moments, insightful flashes that answer questions we’ve had, seemingly out of nowhere, these light bulbs turning on above our heads are essentially the result of our wandering minds.

There are times when our logical thought process, which is considered as heavy lifting brain activity, doesn’t yield the necessary results. Another strategy that many people don’t immediately consider is ‘out-sight’ or out-of-the-box thinking. The best way to encourage this is by taking a break and spending some time working on a task that’s not demanding, mundane, and boring so to speak. These mundane tasks are so simple that they require little to no brain capacity to perform, leaving your mind free to wander on its own, while your bodily reflexes perform the task.

A study conducted recently, indicates just how crucial it is to give your mind the right type of break. Benjamin Baird and colleagues selected young adults to work on problems called Unusual Uses Tasks or UUT. Designed to test creativity, these problems asked them to think of unorthodox uses for everyday common items, like a coin. Each person was assigned two different problems to solve within two-minutes each, after which a 12-minute break was provided so the subjects could relax in their own unique way, followed by two more problems.

Upon the conclusion of this study, the results suggested that the performing of mundane tasks in their 12-minute break allowed the test subjects to come up with more creative answers to UUT questions, as compared to the questions before the break. It enhanced general creativity in tackling newly presented problems, that too, in individuals that belonged to varying lifestyles.

Another important consideration is that sometimes behaviour that appears to be a waste of time by external standards may actually be quite productive as judged by personal concerns to achieving specific goals and long term visions.

Despite how your wandering mind can help you in situations that require a creative approach to problem solving, you can’t keep this up throughout the day, without some form of boundary or control.

Remember, there is a time and place for all things in life, and allowing your mind to wander at the wrong moment will either cost you an opportunity or prove to be embarrassing. Burnt roasts and hammered thumbs are a fine example of this, and I’m sure you can relate to such situations with a list of your own. Imagine a pilot with a wandering and highly creative mind – not very appealing thought, is it? Given our tendency to be absent-minded, it’s amazing that we actually complete so many tasks everyday. Slips of memory for certain occupations such as a surgeon, train driver and pilot can have disastrous consequences however for others, it can be a momentary trip to another time and place, resulting in fun and fearless discoveries.

Dr. Samineh I. Shaheem is the Learning Development specialist and the owner of Life Clubs UAE. She has studied and worked in different parts of the world, including the USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands, and now the UAE. She co-hosts a radio program on 103.8 FM Dubai Eye (Psyched Sundays, Voices of Diversity 10-12pm) every Sunday morning discussing the most relevant psychological issues in our community. Twitter: @saminehshaheem/Facebook: Life Clubs UAE. Please forward your thoughts and suggestions for future articles to OutOfMindContact@gmail.com