If you’re looking for ideas – new ideas, fresh ideas, great ideas – they all have one thing in common. They are not usually hiding very far. But like new breeds of fish spawning beneath the subconscious of your mind, they are seldom going to jump out at you. You have to find them, lure them, and then pull them out yourself.
Before looking at ways to find ideas, first here are the Top 5 Ways Not to Fish for Ideas:
1. Wait for the idea to find you, while you carry on with your normal routines.
2. Create a committee. Unless you have people skilled at coming up with new ideas, a group setting inspires conformity (business as usual) not innovation.
3. Surf the Internet.
4. Watch Television
5. Use Someone Else’s Idea
Again, you need to be proactive when looking for ideas. While many claim a new idea “just came to me!”, the truth is they only come to those who are looking for them. Few have caught a monster of a fish who did not have at least one line in the water.
5 Ways to Fish for Ideas
1. Decide to Find an Idea - Make this your priority and don’t rest until you find it. If you find yourself becoming distracted, remind yourself that you are looking for an idea, refocus, and start again. A famous songwriter once quipped that he found his best ideas while on the toilet. This isn’t really that surprising, because there isn’t too much else to do there and there aren’t many distractions. If you get distracted, change your scenery. Go for a walk. Go outside, look up and set your thoughts bouncing off clouds.
2. Find Some Bad Ideas – Brainstorm as many bad, corny, outlandish, impossible ideas for your situation you can. Number them. When you have as many as you can think of, or a dozen (whichever comes first), set the list aside for a few minutes. When you come back, look at each bad idea and ask yourself, why is this a bad idea? Then, on a new piece of paper, write down the opposite of each idea. Mix the ideas together. Play with them! Let them run, roam and breed. Often the worst idea, when you really start to think about it, can become your best idea ever. Remember, the ATM was invented after a banker was asked to think of the most outlandish idea he could – he pictured himself standing on the sidewalk, handing out money to anyone who asked.
3. Create a Mind Map – On a piece of paper, draw a map of your problem or situation, writing down each component in point form, and connecting them with lines and arrows. This will give you a fresh, topographical perspective of the situation, which will help foster fresh ideas. Most importantly, it will keep you focused in your quest for ideas.
4.Cross Pollinate – Look at a field, or business completely different than yours and examine what they do and how they do it, then ask yourself how you can use similar ideas for your situation. Jack Kerouac came up with a new style of fiction from his love for jazz music, and asking himself how he could make his prose sound like a saxophone. How many paintings or songs have been inspired by novels or films? How many books have been inspired by music or works of art? Don’t just copy an idea, but certainly let yourself become inspired.
5. Practice – Creativity is like anything else we do. The more we do it, the better we become. If you’re out of practice your first few ideas may not be that great. Don’t throw them away. Keep them and try again and again. You’ll soon be able to replace the mediocre ideas with something wondrous, I assure you.
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{ 1 comment }
And here I was just going to steal your ideas. Dang! One of the things I enjoy about your writing style is that you are concise and cognitive. Good combo. I’m going to send a friend to this post – he’s a songwriter and fisherman!
When I need inspiration to write something funny day after day, I bake. That relaxes my mind enough to make space for new, humorous thoughts or angles!
See ya!
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