-Satyakam Ray

2 pm Yawning…..

The time is 2 pm. After a sumptuous meal and idle dilly-dallying with friends in the cafeteria, you finally come to your window-side office cabin. You check your mail and Office Messenger. Crap! The team meeting will occur at 5:30, followed by a client call, and then code reviews will be conducted. KTs will be assigned accordingly. A lot of work needs to be delivered by the end of the day, and you’re already feeling drowsy! Your mind is in a dilemma. Your brain tells you to stay awake and alert and finish the job, while your heart tells you to take a short nap and put off the work. After all, you have some time left! Finally, you gave in to your procrastination and dozed off.

This typical behavior of delaying work until the last minute of the deadline can be observed in any walk of life. But miraculously, the result is delivered in proper time, much to the amusement and relief. Naptime procrastination is often linked to ineffective time management and a lack of motivation. However, it can also be an alternative way to foster creativity and innovation.

Nap pods

In professional circles, tech world bigwigs like Facebook and Google have recognized this employee conundrum and built nap pods for staff to relax and think in solitude. The whole setup has been designed to foster creativity among staff. One can become jealous after seeing HubSpot’s Gilligan’s Island-themed nap room.

Sleep is paramount to the wellness of any healthy being. A Bangalore start-up, Wakefit Innovations Pvt. Ltd., offers internships to volunteers who sleep for nine hours straight. The internships enable volunteers to explore the relationship between adequate sleep and the generation of innovative ideas.

Cultural angle: The afternoon siesta, or nap, is standard in many cultures worldwide, especially in Spain and the Mediterranean. The siesta period lasts from 2 to 3 p.m. The short-day sleep habit has been associated with a 37 percent reduction in coronary mortality.

Salvador Dali

Dali’s method: Eccentric Catalan artist Salvador Dalí believed that one of the pivotal moments in his becoming a great painter was “slumber with a key.” This term refers to an afternoon nap lasting no more than one second.

In his 1948 book Salvador Dali: 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, he outlined the five steps to taking the ultimate nap.

Dali’s 5 Steps to The Ultimate Nap

• Sleep sitting upright in an armchair.
• Hold a heavy metal key in your hand.
• Place a metal plate upside down underneath the hand holding the key.
• Allow yourself to drift to sleep. Once this happens, you will drop the keys, hit the plate, and make a big CLANG!
• Wake up and congratulate yourself on achieving a micro-nap.

Dali, the king of this micro-nap, said it “revivified” an artist’s whole physical being.” Many famous people throughout history have used this hypnagogic nap. Einstein, Edison, Da Vinci, Napoleon, Margaret Thatcher, Aristotle, JFK, and Ronald Reagan used to take power naps or afternoon siestas.

Einstein’s chair

Procrastination: Procrastination is always associated with guilt, stress, the dread of failure, anxiety, depression, and diminished self-worth. Average linear productivity doesn’t make room for creativity. On the contrary, procrastination leads to innovation. Productive procrastination can be a tool for tackling complex problems. Ideas can be sparked by procrastinating deliberately, i.e., wisely waiting for the right time.

Creative genius Leonardo da Vinci was an accidental procrastinator when he painted the Mona Lisa. Following Dali’s method, Edison used to take an afternoon nap to think about innovative ideas. Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Socrates and Aristotle, developed the term akrasia to describe this behavior.

Professor Charles Limb at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has conducted MRI scans of improvising musicians and rap artists, finding that the brain shuts down areas associated with self-monitoring and inhibition while they are creative. A similar phenomenon occurs when a procrastinator tends to complete a task just before the deadline.

Accidental procrastinators, like most of us, tend to overcome the panic monster in their heads upon the advent of deadlines. However, chronic procrastinators should strive to change their habits and maintain a balance to complete the job on time. Otherwise, they can forever be stuck in the dark realm of unhappiness and anxiety.

So, don’t worry about scheduled tasks the next time you take a power nap from work in the afternoon. You don’t know; maybe the creative genius within you will wake up, and you might be able to conjure up one or two patent-worthy, out-of-the-box ideas, at least! Who knows?! Take your nap time seriously!