(1) The tasks becomes so automatic, you no longer have to think about it and "work through it". It sinks into the subconscious. This is important.
(2) When the tasks becomes automatic, you naturally relax. Being relaxed, creativity and inspiration comes out. You cannot force it out. Stress kills creativity. Fear-inspired creativity typically manifests as paranoia.
(3) This is why some people can get oddly-inspired brilliance as a complete n00b in a craft. He doesn't know anything, yet sometimes he is relaxed enough that some randomly brilliant thing comes out. Often, this fades away with more mastery of the craft. It is why children are often perceived as naturally more creative.
(4) Someone who has mastered a craft to the point where it requires no thinking can be far more creative than the complete n00b. A master's inspiration takes advantage of deep understanding of his craft, so not only would it be far more effective, it is much more consistent.
(5) The four stages of competancy: unconsciously incompetant, consciously incompetant, consciously competant, unconsciously competant.
Most people reach the stage of consciously competancy (which requires concentration) and stop there. This is the stage where you've "learned" something and you "get" it. To reach the stage of unconsciously competancy, however, requires an incredible amount of practice and repetition (Malcom Gladwell's ballpark-nice-round-number of 10,000 ... which depending on the skill, really isn't all that much).
An example in the case of programming: I remember when I first learned the Ruby syntax. While I had other languages under my belt, I still had to mentally, and deliberately parse the syntax, and then try to understand the flow. Now, if I look at a codebase I am reasonbly familiar with, I can glance at it. I don't really see the code itself so much as how it all fits together. I have not yet mastered the syntax to the point where I can glance at unfamiliar code and do that.
Another example related to programming: I've seen would-be-programmers struggle to type their programs. For them, they have not reached a stage of unconscious competancy with typing. They have to frame bits of their thoughts and then deliberately type it out. Some touch-typists I know are not that much better. For me, having played so much MUDs back in its heyday, I've learned how to type well enough that it is no longer an interface bottleneck for me.
Example from martial arts: There is actually a ton of material written about this subject of creativity in the "boxing ring", some of the surviving ones written a couple hundred years ago or more. One of my favorite is the Japanese densho, Neko no Myojutsu. A modern (though more obtuse) treatise about this subject is "Effortless Power". Both books discusses the cases about creativity, the newbie, and the master craftsmen.
(1) The tasks becomes so automatic, you no longer have to think about it and "work through it". It sinks into the subconscious. This is important.
(2) When the tasks becomes automatic, you naturally relax. Being relaxed, creativity and inspiration comes out. You cannot force it out. Stress kills creativity. Fear-inspired creativity typically manifests as paranoia.
(3) This is why some people can get oddly-inspired brilliance as a complete n00b in a craft. He doesn't know anything, yet sometimes he is relaxed enough that some randomly brilliant thing comes out. Often, this fades away with more mastery of the craft. It is why children are often perceived as naturally more creative.
(4) Someone who has mastered a craft to the point where it requires no thinking can be far more creative than the complete n00b. A master's inspiration takes advantage of deep understanding of his craft, so not only would it be far more effective, it is much more consistent.
(5) The four stages of competancy: unconsciously incompetant, consciously incompetant, consciously competant, unconsciously competant.
Most people reach the stage of consciously competancy (which requires concentration) and stop there. This is the stage where you've "learned" something and you "get" it. To reach the stage of unconsciously competancy, however, requires an incredible amount of practice and repetition (Malcom Gladwell's ballpark-nice-round-number of 10,000 ... which depending on the skill, really isn't all that much).
An example in the case of programming: I remember when I first learned the Ruby syntax. While I had other languages under my belt, I still had to mentally, and deliberately parse the syntax, and then try to understand the flow. Now, if I look at a codebase I am reasonbly familiar with, I can glance at it. I don't really see the code itself so much as how it all fits together. I have not yet mastered the syntax to the point where I can glance at unfamiliar code and do that.
Another example related to programming: I've seen would-be-programmers struggle to type their programs. For them, they have not reached a stage of unconscious competancy with typing. They have to frame bits of their thoughts and then deliberately type it out. Some touch-typists I know are not that much better. For me, having played so much MUDs back in its heyday, I've learned how to type well enough that it is no longer an interface bottleneck for me.
Example from martial arts: There is actually a ton of material written about this subject of creativity in the "boxing ring", some of the surviving ones written a couple hundred years ago or more. One of my favorite is the Japanese densho, Neko no Myojutsu. A modern (though more obtuse) treatise about this subject is "Effortless Power". Both books discusses the cases about creativity, the newbie, and the master craftsmen.