DESTINATION: TRANSFORMATION

Make every moment of your holiday matter because, as Cyan Turan discovered, your best ideas come when you least expect them

How to make every moment matter

Last summer, I was on a flight home from Turkey on my own. I concluded an unfinished podcast, ordered a watery coffee, ate a Borrower-sized packet of free crisps, then wondered what to do for the next three-and-a-half hours. Soon, ideas for the novel that had been percolating for months flooded my brain; I wrote lists of plot points, questions that needed answering before I could start writing, people to speak to for advice. It was the most productive I’d been – in or out of the office – in a long time.

Following the tributaries of a creative idea isn’t as easy as it once was: as we rush from one task or place to the next, distracting ourselves with our phones in-between, we leave no headspace for the work of imagination. Tedium is rare, and the solo flight is one such occasion where my brain truly disengages from the minutiae of modern life and begins exploring ideas and plans that have been simmering, yet to boil, in my subconscious.

This idea isn’t entirely without precedent. While reading Manoush Zomorodi’s book Bored And Brilliant: How Time Spent Doing Nothing Changes Everything last year, I experienced one of life’s true light-bulb moments. The theory – that our brains are at their most creative and agile when we’re bored – spoke to me: I have my best ideas when I’m in the shower, half-asleep, or cooking. That is to say, when I’m doing tasks so routine that my brain doesn’t need to focus and I can’t

distract myself with my phone. With the best will in the world, my thoughts don’t meander to their destination (name: Eureka!) in the office or while ensconced in the velvet cushions of a co-working club. Solo flights, however, do the trick.

Aeroplanes aren’t inspirational spaces, but that’s entirely the point – you need a dull, blank canvas on which to paint your next masterpiece. Of course, the conditions have to be right: the ideal flight is with a budget airline (no frills or hours of movies) to a middle-distance destination, such as the Canary Islands, Turkey, or Estonia (enough time to let your mind wander into a labyrinth and start working its way out). Ideally, you’ll be on your own – anyone who has ever travelled with a toddler will tell you that – and able to ignore the onset of on-board wi-fi, which threatens to fill precious empty time with clicks and scrolls.

My theory does not apply to airports. Airports, with their beer-sodden stags and Day-glo lighting, are hellish. Unlike the late, great writer AA Gill, who found joy in the ‘departures and arrivals, the most ancient saga of travelling and returning’, I prefer to arrive for my flights as late as possible and sprint to the front of the passport queue upon returning, such is my desperation to get on with whichever leg of the journey is next. The plane is the place, though, to do some deep, difficult thinking. So, this summer, when you take flight, allow your dreams to do the same.