If your mind slumps like a soggy teabag, you are probably not peering under enough stones. It's logical. If yours is the sort of brain that yearns to glimpse the secret life teeming beneath a rock or to fathom the elusive appeal of ferret racing, it is clearly going to bring vigour and insight to the office intray. "I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talents," said Albert Einstein. "Curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas."
Research by US psychologist Todd Kashdan has concluded that IQ, personal relationships and professional creativity – in short, life fulfilment – are enhanced by curiosity and he has teamed up with Psychologies magazine to create a three-day Life Curious Challenge to prise open minds that have been sealed by daily grind.
"Although you might believe certainty and control over your circumstances brings you pleasure, it is often uncertainty and challenge that bring the longest-lasting benefits," he says.
Business psychologist Steve Carter, of Apter Development, agrees that a playful and rebellious spirit produces the best brainwaves. There are several stages to the creative process, he says: "Recognition of the problem or opportunity, incubation when you mull over it, illumination when you identify a way forward and verification when you carry out the idea."
"At work it's the incubation and illumination stages that seem most difficult, because these require a different mindset that can be inhibited by the pressure to conform and deliver."
Unhappily, curiosity starts to wither within us once we hit 30. But Kashdan – who's written a book Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life – believes it can be artificially replenished if we're brave enough to shed our blinkers.
Seek out the new. Kashdan's dawn-till-dusk challenge involves inserting novel experiences into the daily routine to open the mind. You could listen to a new kind of music over breakfast, swap your usual newspaper for a different perspective, lunch with someone you don't usually speak to, visit an exhibition you would normally steer clear of and learn a language or cook an exotic meal instead of turning on the telly when you fall through your front door.
Embrace new views: "In the USA there is an initiative to revolutionise approaches to cancer treatment by bringing together physicists, mathematicians and engineers to work with cancer scientists," says Carter. "Talk to people who may have a completely different way of thinking about an issue." Kashdan agrees. "Instead of automatically looking at a situation from your usual stand, take a look from a different perspective, whether it's an unwelcome idea from a colleague or the war in Afghanistan."
Reinvent your desk. Get to work early and rearrange your work top, adding an inspirational montage or motto or anything else that might shake up your apathy. "The key is to changing your usual surroundings to find the unfamiliar in the familiar," says Kashdan.
Escape your confines. Those light-bulb moments require a mulling period and that playful, rebellious spirit, and you're unlikely to manage that in the office with phones and blackberries pulsing all round you. "Find a space that works," advises Carter. "Going for a walk is a proven way of changing your mindset to a positive and playful one."
Stick to the here and now. If you're haunted by a pile of unanswered letters or agonising over a cock-up in conference, sort things out before you start mulling. "Creativity is impossible if you're focused on the past or future," says Carter. "Believe it or not, breathing properly, steadily, rhythmically, deeply, is a great way of focusing on the moment. Watch any athlete doing it."
