White Space 102: Go for 10!

Have you mastered 5 minutes of White Space and want more? Got addicted to the idea of 'day dreaming' that we were all taught to abandon when we were in school?

If you've ever wondered why children are so naturally imaginative, and we adults aren't, you need only look to create more White Space in your life. In White Space 101, I gave examples of two 5-minute tasks that can get you started. Now lets see what we can do with 10 WHOLE MINUTES!!

1. Post-it Paths

Ever have the light bulb in your brain go off, and before you can really see the room it's in, it goes dark again? Oh... just me? Well, on the off chance that a few of you have had this experience, here's an exercise that should help. First, jot down that thought, in as few words or simple pictures as possible. Post-it's work great for this, but any ol' scrap of paper will do. Now you've "caught the light" as it were and can move on. The next step is to take that scrap of light bulb work, and with your 10 minutes of White Space, map out the path(s) that light could take. It might be a straight path to a destination, it might radiate out like sun beams, it might prism out into a rainbow of crazy ideas... there's no fixed way to think or do this task. You may find that ideas come in sequential order... mine come in all kinds of random inspirations. This is where post-it's are handy, because I can 'rearrange the furniture' of my thoughts to create something that may begin to resemble logic. A great theme to embrace when doing this particular task is "It's easier to tone down a wildly exciting idea than it is to make a mundane idea exciting."

2. Tackle a Wicked Problem: What's at the roots?

We've all heard the phrase "Root of the problem..." and hopefully this is one way to untangle a messy situation... aka 'Wicked Problem'. This is a task that is not for the faint of heart, as it means writing down challenges that we sometimes are nervous to tackle. This is one where our ever handy set of post-its again come in handy, but scrap paper will work too. I advise that you use a tool that lets you re-arrange individual notes easily... this is key! First, write each challenge on it's own individual post-it or scrap. Try and get the simple 'easy to fix' ones down along with the 'Oh, this is too heavy!' ones. I promise, this is as hard as it gets and try and do it for only 5 minutes (set a timer if you need to... your smart phone is handy for this!) In the next 5 minutes sort these challenges into groups of similarity. Perhaps some share a common person, place, behavior, material, desired outcome, or timing? For example, I recently took in feedback from a diverse group of people on issues individuals were having. Turns out that basically all issues could be walked back to a need for better communication. So what seemed, at first, a mysterious and confusing set of challenges that had all kinds of assumptions baked in, turned out to be a lack of clear and ongoing communication. Without this seemingly simple exercise, I may not have gotten to the root of the issue. Healthy growth starts with healthy roots... in plants, in families, and in organizations of any type.