Unlocking Creativity: The Power of Play 🎨

Play is the source of all breakthroughs, the font of creativity.

Hi and welcome back,

What a privilege to write this month about one of the most important—and often overlooked—aspects of human behaviour! This month Caroline and I will be focusing on play, so for starters let’s define what we mean by ‘play’.

When  you think about it, play isn’t easy to define—in fact, most of our immediate assumptions about it don’t hold up.

For example, do we have to be having fun for an activity to be regarded as play? Not necessarily: sometimes we ‘play’ at something with full focus and serious concentration. 

Does play have to be a time-limited activity, a time out from the ‘important’ things we do every day? Again, not necessarily so. Every time you catch yourself day dreaming, for instance, you’re playing with ideas and thoughts. 

Is play activity without a goal, with no particular ‘achievement’ or end state in mind? Now we’re on to something--and that something is the reason play is so important. 

When we play, we’re not aiming towards a pre-determined outcome. We’re simply engaging in an activity for its own sake, an activity Oliver Burkeman, the author of the wonderful book Four Thousand Weeks, How to Use Time Well, refers to as an ‘atelic’ activity—one where there’s no pre-established end goal. We’re doing whatever it is simply for its own sake, because we find the activity enjoyable.

If that feels like a waste of time, think again. Almost everything we do is done for a pre-determined reason. We already know the ‘how’ and ‘why’, and much of what we do is so routine that we aren’t even particularly aware of the process. We’re either acting out of habit, or we’re using our (deductive) problem solving skills.

Play, on the other hand, is when we take a break from habits and established ways of problem solving, and start acting and thinking in new ways. It’s when we try out new behaviours and/or reorganise small segments of existing behaviours. It’s when we come up with something new and fresh. Play is the source of all breakthroughs, the font of creativity.

I hope you’re convinced now. Not only is it fun to play —we need it because only then will there be innovation.

In my next piece I’ll suggest ways to find the most satisfying type of play for you, and how to fit time for play into your schedule.

Until then, enjoy the lovely long days that May offers us.

Warm sunny wishes,

Linda