This year, I spent the holidays attending a 10-day meditation camp which requires noble – i.e., complete – silence. There were no electronics, no reading, writing or speaking – just meditating in silence, sitting cross-legged. Though my physical body could not move during meditation, my brain was very active. Out of the blue, an idea would flash into my consciousness. “I have to write it down”, I thought, “Otherwise I will forget it and forever regret it.”
I usually record ideas on my iPad, but that was obviously not an option. Luckily I found a pen in a deep corner of my backpack. No notebook? I secretly kept some napkins from the dining room. By the end of the camp I wrote ideas on about 10 napkins.
Immediately after coming back, I googled and tweeted to ask for an appropriate term to describe this kind of “idea flashing”. I couldn’t find a satisfying term and decided to call it a “napkin idea”, an idea so interesting that I must write it down right away, even if on a napkin.
What is a “napkin idea”? Unlike brainstorming which is purposeful thinking, the napkin idea happens more as a Eureka moment. Science is a big intellectual challenge, and generating an idea is probably the hardest part. People tend to have traditional ways of thinking according to their background and environment, which while good, might make it hard to jump out of the box. However, our brain never stops wandering. When we are not thinking purposefully, the brain may flash at a random point, building a bridge or a network that connects seemingly unrelated knowledge, generating a new perspective. This bridge or network – generated unconsciously – is what I call a ‘napkin idea’. It could happen at any random moment when the brain is free: in the shower, sitting on the toilet, driving on the highway, or lying sleepless in bed. Because of its randomness, we cannot seek it, but only embrace it when it strikes.
Letting the brain free is the key to generating napkin ideas, but what is more important is the keeping of a record. I find that my brain usually does not have enough knowledge to make a judgment when an idea flashes out, so I write down the napkin ideas on whatever is accessible at the moment, even a napkin. Our brain by nature is so good at forgetting such ideas – not the other way around. It does not necessarily have to be written on a napkin. Throughout the years, I have been also documenting my napkin ideas using notebooks, laptop, iPhone, and iPad. I just need to record the ideas right away in order to refresh my memory later on.
I have benefited tremendously from doing so. My undergraduate thesis research project started with a ‘napkin idea’ that came to me during a sleepless night. I wrote it down. Based on this napkin idea and follow-up collaborations with others, I developed chemical tools for understanding genomic mystery beyond its sequence, and later, published two high-profile research papers. Part of my Ph.D. thesis research was recently published in Cell. In this study, an important part of the work was initiated from a napkin idea documented through email during a seminar.
Whenever I have a napkin idea, I just won’t let it go away. But what to do next with the napkin idea?
First, always follow it up. An idea will never shine without follow-ups. I do literature review for all my napkin ideas. It happens to me that the idea was already addressed by a pioneer elsewhere. But that is fine – as it was still an enjoyable intellectual fulfillment. I wondered about the electrical properties of single-layer graphene as a high school student, without knowing anything about the research of Drs. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov who later shared the Nobel Prize for this work. I have to be honest that many of my ideas also turned out to be ridiculous. However, it does not matter either – as I am able to laugh about them. On the other hand, I know that one good idea is enough to be successful and thus keep on recording napkin ideas.
Second, share the ideas. The perspectives of others always bring in deeper and wider thoughts. For me, I usually go to my mentors and friends. We would evaluate the potential of developing the idea into a research project or hold on for a moment. What I find is that they all just like to talk about new ideas – that must be the nature of being a scientist. They always get excited even when the idea later turns out to be naïve. I have done this frequently with my mentors and hope they do not think I am unfocused. As far as I can tell, they have not blamed me for this, and we did work out a few ideas with interesting results.
Coming back to the meditation trip, when I collected all my napkin ideas – literally – written on napkins, again I found really good ones and also very naïve ones. But as I said, it does not matter. Writing an essay like this is one of the napkin ideas – a good one I think. Next time, I hope you also write down your napkin ideas and give them a chance to boost your career.
I would like to thank Huiyuan Zhang, Dalia Barkley and Itai Yanai for comments and edits.