On Beauty
Wondering how you can be your best at work? Open your eyes! Your visual environment deeply affects your thoughts and feelings and has a profound impact on your behavior. It can dramatically enhance – or constrain – your ability to build ideas and make them happen.
Maybe it’s time to take a vacation.
An experiment conducted in the Swiss Alps found that being in an environment of awe-inspiring beauty makes people more inclined to be creative and more open to learning. Unusual and beautiful surroundings, whether stimulating or serene, help us see situations more holistically and gain new perspective. That’s because novel and complex sensory experiences – mainly visual ones, but also birdsong, water sounds, the taste and feel of the air – jolt our attention out of its customary grooves.
Work it out.
Good news for your vacation budget: the results were the same when people were looking at a picture of the mountains as when they were looking out at actual mountains. So, while a trip to the Alps would be nice, a simpler change of place can also do the trick. Whether it's the freedom to work from a local park or stepping away from their desk for a walk, research shows that employees are more productive when they're allowed to connect with nature. No one should be chained to a desk under fluorescent lights; in fact, I recently read that the guy who invented the cubicle deeply regretted unleashing it on the world. Go for a walk and feast your eyes on some trees! You’ll get twice as much done in half the time when you get back.
If all else fails, buy a plant.
The spaces you work in should themselves be inspiring. Even if you can’t get outside regularly, you can surround yourself with beauty. Plants, natural light, a favorite chair or picture go a long way toward creating the right environment. Far from frivolous, investing in a little office up-leveling will actually reap great returns.
Go get yourself some beauty.
Summertime feels like as good a time as any for a reminder to savor the beauty of nature. I wish you all many opportunities to enjoy it in all its glory. In the Alps, in the park or at your desk - grab it where you can and drink it in! Knowing that beauty is also a powerful catalyst for creative thought makes it all the sweeter.