Walkabout
The connection between walking and enhanced creativity has a long history. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1889) wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. New research has backed up what many have thought for centuries with data, quantifying the effect of walking on human thought. Researchers at Stanford recently found that walking outside led to almost 3 times as many creative ideas as sitting indoors.
Kate
MikeGoal
This simple activity can be used individually or in groups to start a workshop or project or when you are feeling a creative block.
Attachments
Materials
Instructions
Step 1:
Print out the directions dice, or if you can’t print them, create your own by copying the design.
Glue or tape it together.
Facilitator notesYou may use regular dice as follows: 1 = walk forwards straight ahead, 2 = turn to the left, 3 = turn to the right, 4 = go forwards heading diagonally to the left, 5 = go forwards heading diagonally to the right, 6 = walk forwards straight ahead
Step 2:
You are going to take a walk using the directional dice.
Even though you may not have a large space to walk in, you can walk with the idea of seeing your current environment with new eyes.
Step 3:
Roll the die to tell you what direction to head in.
What can you see that you hadn’t noticed before?
Wander around your current environment looking for something you hadn’t noticed before.
Step 4:
Make a list of your observations.
Write about, photograph or draw what you see on your walk.
Step 5:
If undertaking the activity in a group, invite all participants to share their observations on undertaking the activity.Step 6:
Reflection
Take time to reflect on what has emerged.
Reflection ideas could include the following (and come up with your own):
- What do you see?
- What do you sense?
- What's emerging?
- What do we need to stop doing?
- What do we need to start doing?
- By when?
- What else?
Background
Keri Smith, How to be an Explorer of the World
The Data on Walking, Thinking, Creativity, and Ideation | Visualized Health
Keri Smith is a Canadian conceptual artist and author of several bestselling books and apps about creativity. These include a range of activities which encourage us to explore our immediate environments with fresh eyes. As well as writing a book entitled The Wander Society, in which she demonstrates how wandering feeds the creative mind, “How to be an Explorer of the World” is a wonderful compendium of 59 ideas for how to get creatively unstuck by engaging with everyday objects and your surroundings in novel ways.
Source: Hyper Island toolbox
Hyper Island designs learning experiences that challenge companies and individuals to grow and stay competitive in an increasingly digitized world. With clients such as Google, Adidas and IKEA, Hyper Island has been listed by CNN as one of the most innovative schools in the world.
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