Jason Fried – TED – Why work doesn't happen at work

Thinking time is king.

Very interesting talk by Jason Fried which compliments my Design Week article from September.
Here is an extract from what I wrote, and Jason's film below...

"I've got an old Virgin Trains ad in my mind as I write. It seems to sum up the second, bigger question well. 'Man who go on big train have big idea...' was the pay-off, and it was all about how our best creative moments come in 'downtime'. (Except that these days, man who go on train will be working, and perhaps too busy tapping and clicking away to have heap big idea...)

Of course, we'd all love more downtime. But can we afford to see it as a luxury? Jon Steel – who revels in a story about running his BlackBerry® over with his car (twice) – put it more starkly, asking the very pertinent question: Did anyone ever tell you about a brilliant idea that came to them... while they were in the office? 'Lateral thinking', 'diagonal thinking', 'obliquity'... call it what you like, our industry is all about solving problems sideways. And coming at things sideways probably means not getting stuck in too many mental or physical ruts. Are there good ways to force us away from our work (it's no longer enough to get away from your desk, you've got to get away from your handheld-multitasking-device too), to change our scene or get us out 'into the field' (that's the place, after all, where our work is supposed to make a difference)?

And it's not just about the space to have the 'big ideas', either. It's about all the tools we use for thinking, communicating, and working together, every day.

Some technologies can seduce us into keeping our audiences, our end-users, and our clients at arm's length. Picking up the phone instead of emailing; a spot of secret shopping instead of another Google search; some time spent staring at the wall – all these things will cut our keyboard time, and could well be a shortcut to better work and better working relationships" Design Week September, 2010



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