We can become so addicted to the feeling of “getting things done” that we speed run through our to-do list and completely lose the ability to enter an “open mode” of thinking where we can be playful with ideas and create innovation.
Maybe the addiction is the feeling of adrenaline when we put out new fires that arise on an hour-by-hour basis.
Either way, we begin to lose the flexibility that allows us to create new things. Productivity is vital, but producing things that are good ideas is the best productivity.
The goal is to enter a playful and open mode of thinking when brainstorming for ideas and novel things to create and then to enter a closed mode of thinking in which we can laser focus on knocking out tasks on our to-do list and building the ideas that we come up with.