No one works harder than independent businesspeople. Even after hours they’re thinking about new strategies, lingering problems or potential opportunities. Some consider personal pursuits a waste of valuable time. Not so, says Teresa Amabile, a Harvard Business School professor, who suggests we all need breaks from work to be more creative, better at solving problems and less stressed.
Creative and intellectual outlets help you work better. “Hobbies can help you make new associations or break out of particular pathways and think of things in new ways,” Amabile says.
One of the keys is to get into the “flow” of your activity of choice, which means getting really absorbed in it. “An entrepreneur who’s been struggling with a particular problem in the business can go out, get absorbed in the hobby and—even if they don’t get into the flow experience—can find the relaxation sometimes stimulates new ideas and concepts through the incubation process and allows new connections and ideas to form,” Amabile says.
“Hobbies can generate happy feelings,” she says. “If people go into work in a better mood, they are more likely to come up with creative ideas that day. And we even see a carry-over effect into the next day as well.”
Amabile stresses that everyone needs to unplug daily, or at least weekly, to keep the creative juices flowing.
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