When you’ve hit a wall at work, this video from New York Magazine‘s Science of Us suggests it’s time to go into tinker-mode. Research on creative problem solving shows people don’t spend enough time in this phase. The solution? Keep at it. People come up with better solutions the longer they spend working on them. Tinkering is key—the brain has “leaky filters,” as science columnist Sharon Begley writes. When we give ourselves the time, disparate items can sift together to form new combinations: the essence of creativity. “Short of a personality or brain transplant, you can maximize your inherent creativity by sheer perseverance,” Begley writes:
