In Defense of Daydreaming

If you’d known me in first and second grade, you’d assume I was headed for delinquency given the amount of trouble gazing out of windows got me into. I still have fuzzy memories of frustrated teachers tapping their hands onto my desk to bring me back to earth or purposely calling my name to answer questions I wasn’t paying attention to. I lost count of how many times my parents were alerted to my behavior and told to put me on ADHD meds. And while I have the kind of parents who collectively spent 4 decades as nurses and will to-this-day produce a pharmacy of allergy pills before I even finish sneezing, they never caved on this one. So I’ve spent many years in a perpetual cycle of struggling to stay in the moment and subsequently beating myself up about it. Daydreaming happened to me in class, in the car, in conversations with people I love and in work meetings. It’s caused me to get lost while driving to familiar places. It’s caused me to miss my husband’s stories about his day. It’s caused me to drift off at times when I really did need to be present. And none of the usual tactics—from meditation to medication—have ever really helped me get a handle on it.

But a few years ago at an AIGA conference, I heard productivity writer Jocelyn Glei tell a story similar to mine. She described her daydreaming habit as “white space,” which was not only incredibly relatable to a room full of designers, it also framed daydreaming as an intentional practice rather than a problem. Maybe it was something about approaching my thirties that compelled me to start accepting who I am and figuring out how to make my flaws work in my favor, or maybe it was the design analogy that helped things click, but since then, I’ve started to work daydreaming into my day (or giving myself white space) on purpose. I take short walks when I get distracted or stuck. I completely zone out when I’m drinking coffee in the morning or having a meal alone. Eyes glazed over, head in the clouds—I’m steady daydreaming during meals, showers, rides in the car and even TV shows.

I’ve come to see daydreaming not as a weakness but as my superpower. It’s the easiest, most natural skill I have, and I can do it anytime I need to. Like white space on a page, it helps create balance and clarity so the important things don’t get lost in the clutter. Most of my creative ideas, solutions to problems and even good memories come to me when I’m daydreaming. And because I’ve gotten so good at identifying the moments when I can let my mind wander, I can be present in the moments that need my full attention. It’s not a perfect science, and I won’t go into a bunch of contrived, self-validating research about how daydreaming makes us more productive or reduces stress or ensures better child-rearing. But I will say that while it seems like everyone and their instagram memes are telling us to “be present” and “focus on the current moment,” I believe there’s real value in drifting off for a while.

For more on the power of quiet time to help you conjure up your best ideas, read this.