Daydreaming at your Job

One past-time I've learned to embrace and even practice over the years is daydreaming. The art of daydreaming to me is one of the most important ways of generating new ideas and stories. People will probably tell you that daydreaming is just escapism and I guess to a certain degree it is, but for me it's like a key that unlocks my imagination.

Funnily enough, daydreaming seems to work best for me when I'm at my part time job working as a labourer, putting up shelters over playgrounds. There's something about the repetitive nature of the job that seems to free up space in my head for daydreaming (I experienced the same thing when I was a dishwasher and a gardener). It seems that if I do something enough times my brain seems to be able to do it without me even thinking about it, kind of like being on autopilot (there's probably a scientific name for it). It's in this moment when my creativity is at its peak, it's when I daydream the most and when I come up with a lot of my ideas.

These ideas eventually form into illustrations, comics, stories and just about anything you can think of. So the next time someone tells you “you've got your head in the clouds”, take it as a compliment. Just remember to come back down to earth every now and then to put your ideas to good use.