Earlier this year, Stanford University researchers found that a person’s ability to think creatively increases almost 60 percent when they abandon that office chair for a stroll around the block. And taking brief, unplugged vacations and spending time outdoors specifically have proven to help us arrive at our best ideas and improve our decision-making abilities.
Of course, great creative minds don’t necessarily take a cue from science or wait around for research to back up their methods — they arrive through intuition and discipline at the habits and practices that lead to their best ideas and greatest successes. Here are 10 people who found some of their best ideas by stepping out the office, away from the noise and into spaces that encourage their creativity rather than stifle it.