Idea Powers No. 4 of 28
They call it: Jumps between topics We call it
Also known as associative thinking.
The short version One thought in your head pulls in a hundred others, and sometimes two of them click.
Collected. 0 of 28.
Your thoughts arrive holding hands. One idea reminds you of a song, the song reminds you of a diagram, and the diagram turns out to be the answer. Adults in one interview study described thought that jumps and links fast, which the researchers called cognitive dynamism.Source 1
There may be a brain reason, and it is not settled. In 20 adults with ADHD, the brain’s idle network and its focus network were less neatly opposed than in 20 adults without.Source 2 Some scientists think that could help link distant ideas. Nobody has tested that guess in ADHD.Source 3
Two researchers even argued that Leonardo da Vinci’s habit of starting far more than he finished might fit ADHD.Source 4 Nobody can diagnose someone who lived 500 years ago, though.
Lived experience
Interviews with a handful of successful adults, plus small brain studies. The link to connecting ideas is a guess nobody has tested.
The link feels obvious to you and random to everyone else, so you have to show your working. Half the room needs the middle step.
Explain something you know using a comparison from a subject the other person loves.
Your brain is a spider web. Touch one thread and the whole web wiggles. That is how one thought pulls in ten more.
Musician and founder of the Black Eyed Peas
One thing I learned about ADHD is that it’s hard to keep your attention, and you can’t sit still and you’re always moving and thinking about a whole bunch of things. But those traits work well for me in studios and in meetings about creative ideas.
Said in: will.i.am on Understood
will.i.am is a musician and producer who founded the Black Eyed Peas. He has also said music keeps his attention in order.