Organizations are wired for efficiency. If they can’t prove a 1:1 cause-and-effect between an activity and its result, then it can be difficult to make a case for its existence. But many of the things that provide the greatest results are activities that seem inefficient in the short-term but are incredibly effective over the long-term. They are the practices that increase mental space and allow connections to form. They are the disciplined, focused times of idea generation that often yield nothing but occasionally yield business-changing thoughts.

But if these practices can yield such great results, why don’t more of us build them into our life? One reason is because we fall prey to the efficiency race as well. We want to feel productive, and sometimes the best way to feel like we’re getting something done is to push paper around or reply to emails instead of doing things that generate less predictable results like purposefully generating new ideas, organizing our life/work or spending time with people who creatively stimulate us.

We each have activities in our life that fall under the “incredibly unpredictable but potentially life changing” category. It’s important to remember that - while they might not be as predictably efficient as the other activities - these activities are the cornerstone of our long-term creative engagement.