Put your smartphone down and look around. Without the help of a secondary device, what feeds your creativity?

Why creativity’s a challenge while you’re plugged in, and more, in today’s Lunchtime Links:

Be bored, get creative: There’s enough accessible data produced every day to keep us entertained every minute of every hour. We have the tools and technologies to access that data, but are the tools getting in the way of our creative eye? “Numerous studies and much accepted wisdom suggest that time spent doing nothing, being bored, is beneficial for sparking and sustaining creativity,” mobile expert Brian Hall writes for ReadWrite. “With our iPhone in hand—or any smartphone, really—our minds, always engaged, always fixed on that tiny screen, may simply never get bored. And our creativity suffers.” With so many small-screen distractions out there, how do you reserve time to be creative? Maybe it’s time to put your smartphone away.

Details, details: You want your staff to give 100 percent of their attention to their work. But how can they do that when they have a potpourri of tasks on their plate? Andy Freed, president of Virtual, Inc., highlights the potential difference—in terms of member service—between having an in-house staff tasked with handling an array of details or hiring an outside management company. “If an organization is having a subject-matter expert spending time printing name badges, that’s not maximizing value for the members,” writes Freed in the Association Management Blog.

Nonprofit ideas worth spreading: TED conferences are known for being highly inspiring and enlightening. For years, they’ve been true to their motto “Ideas Worth Spreading.” If you’re a nonprofit leader, these three TEDTalks are for you. You can see Bono talk about the “good news on poverty,” hear Dan Pallotta’s take on the nonprofit and charity industry’s transformation, and get to know Ron Finley’s project to plant gardens across South Central LA.

What’s on your reading list today? Let us know in your comments below.

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