It turns out that daydreaming and procrastination have some significant cognitive benefits. This information is more for parents than for kids, but you can tell your kids when they are adults.
Daydreaming is a type of divergent thinking that allows the mind to freely and creatively solve problems and plan for the future. Daydreaming is referred to as divergent thinking by cognitive scientists and one interesting experiment sheds light on just how useful this type of thinking can be.
Psychologists gave 145 undergraduates a creativity test known as the “unusual use” task. In the test, they ask the undergrads to list as many possible uses for common objects (like bricks, toothpicks or hangers). Following the first round of the test they gave everyone a 12 minute break. During the break, the undergrads were funneled to one of three activities – resting quietly, performing a simple memory task, or doing something so boring that it would elicit daydreaming.
After the 12 minute period, the undergrads did a second version of the unusual task, and wouldn’t you know it, those who were forced to do something so boring they couldn’t help but daydream were able to find many more creative uses for common objects.
The idea is that we have compartmentalized minds where different parts of the brain have different functions. Our brain is a muscle and so habits of mind are muscle memory and are quite simple for the brain to repeat without much thought. Daydreaming actively breaks down barriers allowing for a broader free flow of thought.
So it goes with procrastination. More often than not, when someone procrastinates a task that they are quite capable of doing, it is because mentally they are not quite ready to create what they want, and the process of waiting is actually a process of thinking. Ideally, it is also a period in which such acts of creative thinking like daydreaming will take place, and suddenly the eureka moment comes, and a person is able to begin, and finish, a project in relatively short order. Often, they are able to complete a task well, in a shorter time frame than if they had started in weeks earlier when they weren’t sure about the product they were creating.
With this, not only can parents have faith that when their kids are daydreaming and procrastinatting there are some cognitive benefits but this information also allows us to pause and think a little about how we think.
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