I was lining up my ducks. Then I saw a squirrel.

I've been known to have a bit of a squirrel brain.

You know the thing.

I'm in the middle of a conversation. Something catches my attention. That makes me think of something else, which reminds me of another thing and...

Squirrel.

Off I go.

And today has been a particularly fine example of my squirrel brain in action.

Let me show you what I mean...

It started with job applications.

I was actually doing quite well. I'd found a couple of roles, updated my CV and was being remarkably focused and productive.

Then I started thinking I should write my next blog post.

Squirrel.

That led to an idea for a post called This Old Duck.

Then duck became Ducky... which is what my Grandma always called me.

Squirrel.

Suddenly I wasn't thinking about blogs at all. I was thinking about Grandma, the holidays I spent with her as a child and memories I hadn't visited for years.

Then I looked out of the window.

There were two vans outside the empty house across the road. They had cartoon frogs on them, but I couldn't quite read what they said.

Obviously, it became extremely important to find out.

Squirrel.

They were electricians.

Mystery solved.

And somewhere between Grandma and the frog vans, another thought appeared:

Squirrels and ducks. There's a blog post in that.

Which is how I've ended up here.

Squirrel.

The funny thing is, I've spent years thinking this is something I should be better at controlling.

I've been teased about it and, at times, made to feel I should rein it in.

Stay focused.

Think before you speak.

Don't go off on a tangent.

Be professional.

Hear that often enough and you start doing it to yourself.

Don't say that.

That's irrelevant.

Stick to the point.

And yes, sometimes that's perfectly good advice.

There are meetings where nobody needs to accompany me on a scenic tour of whatever has just wandered into my head.

Sometimes I really do need to tell myself:

Sally. Stop following the squirrel and finish what you're doing.

But I've also started noticing something.

Quite often, when I wander off, I don't come back empty-handed. Something I've seen, heard or stumbled across sparks another thought, or connects with something that was already rattling around in my head.

Which has made me wonder whether I'm always losing the thread.

Or whether sometimes I'm following one.

There's actually a theory for this

It's called incubation.

The idea is that when you're trying to solve a problem, your best thinking doesn't necessarily happen while you're sitting there determinedly trying to solve it.

Sometimes stepping away can help.

You stop wrestling with the problem. Do something else. Give your thinking somewhere else to go for a while.

And when you return to it, you may see something you couldn't see before.

Hang on...

What if...?

A different possibility. A connection. Another way of looking at the problem.

So when it comes to my squirrel brain: Maybe sometimes the detour isn't just taking me away from something.

Maybe it's helping me find my way back to it differently.

Hang on...I've just had a squirrel moment!

While writing this post, I suddenly wondered:

How clever are actual squirrels?

Obviously, I had to find out.

Squirrel.

It turns out they're pretty clever little creatures.

They learn. They solve problems. They have impressive spatial memories. Some have even been observed making fake food caches when they're being watched, apparently to throw potential thieves off the scent.

Tiny brain. Quite a lot going on in there.

Which makes me wonder whether being compared to a squirrel brain is such a bad thing after all.

Easily distracted? Quite possibly.

But curious? Exploring? Investigating? Working things out? I'll take that.

After all, today started with job applications, wandered through a future blog post, my Grandma, two frog-covered vans, incubation theory and the intelligence of squirrels.

None of those things had much to do with each other when I started.

But one thought led to another, and somewhere along the way an idea appeared that wasn't there before.

This post.

So maybe that's the point.

Following a squirrel doesn't always mean I've lost the thread.

Sometimes it leads me somewhere useful.

And today...

it led me here.

I’m starting to think I don’t need to tame my squirrel brain after all.

I just need to know when to follow it... and when to say:

Not now. I've got ducks to line up. (Which reminds me... back to those job applications.)