No need to tear your hair out any longer when you’re trying to come up with a new idea. Whether you had success with brain storming or mind mapping in the past, you might need to try something new to get over a plateau. Staring at a blank wall waiting for inspiration is not how to go about it.
Your need to get creative could be to develop content to support your website or blog, come up with creative ideas for an event, start a new business campaign, develop a new product or service, invent a solution to an age old problem, or design new recipes for a cookbook. Clearly, the reason for needing a new idea is exhaustive and highly personal.
No matter what your motivation, there’s an age-old process available to stimulate your creative juices. Advertising guru and author James Webb Young, noted on Amazon as “a driving force behind the creation of the modern advertising industry” wrote the book ‘A technique for Producing Ideas’. Thanks to James we have access to a five step process that if followed to the letter will reward you with a result every time. This book, although not new (originally published in 1965), is brilliant and worth the effort.
The five step process goes like this:
- Gather your raw materials, that is, research, research, research until your head explodes. In this phase it’s important to build your general knowledge across your topic of interest or area of focus. You need to build a solid source of background knowledge that you tap into before you proceed to the next step.
- Next you contemplate all the material you collected earlier. Review all your facts, statistics and information and go over it, really absorb it all. Actively think about all you have learned during your research phase.
- This is the incubating period, the easiest of all. Do anything but more research! Go play your guitar, kick a ball, go shopping, go for a walk or indulge in whatever past time takes your fancy. At all cost keep your mind OFF the research in phase one. This phase is about clearing your mind and creating a blank canvas for the next stage to take hold.
- This is when an idea will hit you, seemingly, totally out of nowhere. Once you have a pool of knowledge in your head and then take a break from it, your mind is free to wander and has space to think freely. This is when you’ll have your eureka moment. You might uncover more than one idea here. Always keep a notepad handy as you don’t want to lose a great thought.
- In this final phase you “shape and develop” your raw idea into a practical and workable solution. You do this by socialising your idea with others. Discuss it with your 3Fs - your friends, family and frenemies if you’re game. It’s important to invite other comments and criticisms to help the idea take shape and hopefully stimulate further thoughts to improve on it.
Doubting whether you can come up with a good idea for your next project is like thinking you can’t draw. Everyone can draw. It’s that simple. Some of us do it more than others and some of us can do it very realistically. Even when we draw the perspective wrong or make the images indiscernible, it doesn’t mean can’t draw. It’s more likely that we judge the result too harshly.
Don’t doubt the five step method, just try it. Be warned, you must follow it to the letter. It’s designed to be followed in strict order. Don’t move onto the next phase until the last one is complete. I hope something good comes out of it for you!
