How you super charge innovation…
Though focus is vitally important to creating anything (be it a business or work of art), there is no rule that says you must focus on only one thing—instead you must focus on only one thing at a time.
There is a large body of both research, and common sense, that draws connections between having various interests and a heightened ability to innovate. Sometimes this concept is called “the cross pollination of ideas“, I personally call it my-attention-span-is-about-90-minutes-so-I-have-to-switch-it-up-alot-ism.
I’ve written in the past that the more we work, the less productive we are, which is backed up by the science of the ultradian rhythm. Since adjusting my own schedule to not “force” myself to work more than 90 minutes straight, and to take breaks in between these work sprints, my productivity, creativity and general well being has gone waaay up.
In addition I now encourage myself to have multiple interests going on at once, so in a given day I may work on 2 to 3 various projects, switching back and forth between 90 minute blocks. The crazy part is these varied interests actually inspire innovation among each other far more than would happen if I was focused on one thing alone.