I also vividly remember the moment I had idea 1 from my list above. It was such a nice warm autumn day in the last months of a very turbulent year: I struggled finding something worth doing a PhD on, and in the 10 weeks before, I got married, my wife got pregnant, was rushed into emergency for a suspected ectopic pregnancy a few days later, which then suddenly turned out to be a completely normal pregnancy. I also had an upcoming conference talk a week later, for which I was completely unprepared. Suddenly the idea was there, and it was like a door to a wide avenue opened, with follow-up ideas left and right all along the way. It turned out quite beautiful in the end, and when we published 6 months later, one of the reviewers found the idea "elegant", which was by far the most positive thing I ever read in a paper review.

> Companies need to promote creative problem-solving spaces, and I'm not talking about a beanbag area with free lattes, but a sit-and-think, light, non-social way of working that promotes this kind of thing.

Would that really solve the problem? I feel like when you're standing in front of your computer screen searching for a solution, it's because you're switching to some different and unplanned activity that you are able to get an eureka! moment. Creating a specific place where employees can go to think would defeat the whole purpose IMHO, because then people would go there and would do the exact same thing as when they're in front of their computer screen.

What may work is promoting short breaks during which employees can do any activity of their liking, whether it be playing video games, walking, smoking a cigarette... Basically anything that takes their mind off work. That guarantees development in creativity.

>Companies need to promote creative problem-solving spaces,

Unfortunately, there are people that do not understand how this concept works. These are the same employees that stare at screens trying to for a square peg into a round hole, but then see other employees trying it the other way and complain about how so many people are doing nothing when so much is to be done.

These complaints tend to percolate up, and these creative problem solving spaces end up getting removed to be replaced by more work space for the additional head count to solve all of the work to be done

This is similar to that ai researcher, Kenneth Stanely, and his talk/book about how planning and having an objective sabotages reaching it. "Greatness cannot be planned" I think was the title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXQPL9GooyI

The question is would you be able to still get those spontaneous ideas at a background level without also the staring at the screen and deliberate work?