Convergence Versus Divergence

 

Which is more effective--convergence amid divergence, or divergence amid convergence? If you're just playing around with ideas you're in divergent mode: you haven't started doing anything--you haven't put anything on paper or canvas--you're just throwing things around and experimenting. When you're in convergence mode you're taking all the things that you gathered and you're starting to make things--you're converging all the accumulated ideas. So is it more effective to stop in the middle of convergence and do more brainstorming, and perhaps waste too much time, or is it better to resume the process? I think it's probably the latter: if you're always stopping and starting you're not really in any kind of a framework. You're just doing things piecemeal, as in making a mosaic. But even if you're making a mosaic you have to have some kind of a grid. Things will happen along the way such as happy accidents, which is probably the main way to be divergent within the convergent mode as a "nudge".