Invisible work includes deep observation, listening, daydreaming, sitting with our intuition, pondering questions about a challenge or opportunity post meeting, and then reframing those questions, writes Natalie Nixon. It’s the feverish scribbling or typing out of new ideas that emerge in the moment or during windshield time on a long drive.
Nixon asserts we need to stop arriving to work in costume. We’ve grown significantly disconnected from our bodies when it comes to working. You just cannot wonder when you’re going 80 miles an hour, so you have to design space in time for that.
Source: Fast Company, February 15, 2022. Link. Opportunities to reconnect to our bodies in order to make sense of our work are ideal for activating creativity through intuition, curiosity, and wonder.
It’s our creativity that sparks that most incredible innovation. That process requires invisible work.” – Natalie Nixon
INSIGHTS: Nixon references Annie Murphy Paul and the principle of interoception: “an awareness of the inner state of the body.”
Also see: 6 Principles of The Interoception Curriculum, You Tube, May 8, 2021. Link. Kelly Maher, OTD discusses the process of validating and honoring each person’s unique inner experience.