Establishing Idea Time
As the old saying goes, if you want to know what’s really important to you, take a look at your bank statement and your calendar. No matter what you say about your priorities, where you spend money and your time will prove them out. If you really believe that ideas are important to you, start putting your resources behind it. Begin by setting aside time for the sole purpose of generating ideas.
How much time? I (Todd Henry) recommend beginning with an hour a week. One hour, predictably scheduled, no exceptions and no violations. It’s an appointment with yourself, a commitment to spend uninterrupted time on generating new ideas, not working on old ones. If you’re like many creatives, you probably spend much of your week in execution mode. This time is not about execution or pragmatics; it is purely about new possibilities.
This is not time to strategize, write copy, design, or in any other way execute an idea you’ve already had. This is not time to do work; this is time to think about work. You are generating new ideas, not developing old ones. You are tilling the soil and planting seeds. While you may not always reap a harvest during these times, you are investing in future insights.
It’s best to spend your hour of Idea Time working on one issue. I encourage clients to begin with their Big 3. Choose one of the items on your list and dedicate one uninterrupted hour focusing on generating ideas. How much could your work change if you made this a practice? How much could one idea change the trajectory of a current project?
This may sound almost too obvious, even silly. “Put time on your calendar to generate ideas.” It’s so simple that it’s tempting to dismiss it. But it’s the small things that make you effective. It’s your attention to details that sets you apart. Knowing does nothing for you—it’s doing that matters. If you want to thrive you must dedicate yourself to doing the things that few people are willing to do. You need to go beyond hacks and quick fixes, and instead develop practices. Practices not only develop skills, they increase your capacity. They form the banks that allow the river to run deep.
When you begin to treat idea generation as a rhythmic practice, you begin to experience growth in your ability to generate ideas when you need them. Just like consistent repetition of any activity will give you mastery, you start to know what a good idea “smells” like. You build confidence in your creative ability and you do it in a low-pressure environment. These capacities are developed through patient repetition and regular practice.
Getting Started With Idea Time
What do you do in your Idea Time? The most critical thing is to begin with a clearly defined problem, preferably in the form of a question. Phrasing your problem as a question immediately gets your mind working on solutions rather than on the pragmatics associated with the project. For example, “Find new markets for XYZ” can easily be rephrased as “How can we expose more potential customers to XYZ?”
Once you’ve established the Challenge, use a large piece of paper or a whiteboard to record your ideas. A method that we’ve found especially helpful to process-oriented creatives is to surround it with a series of questions to stimulate new ways of seeing the problem.
Future
What would a solution to this problem look like? What would it feel like? What is the ultimate state that would describe that the problem has been solved? Write a few words, then start generating ideas off of them.
Past
What are some assumptions that are presently keeping us in gridlock around this problem? Are there any assumptions that need to be challenged or that could serve as a starting point for idea generation? Try to challenge one of these assumptions by generating ideas designed to disprove it.
Conceptual
What are other problems and corresponding solutions that I know of that are similar to this one? Are there any learnings from case studies or other items I’ve been exposed to that could apply to this problem? Try to force a connection between something you’re familiar with and the problem you’re currently working on.
Concrete
What are the specific and concrete attributes of the problem? Can the problem be broken down into three words? If so, do these words give me a new way of perceiving or attacking the problem? Free-associate new words off these concrete attributes and see if they spark any new ideas.
Write down everything that comes to mind, regardless of how impractical it seems. You’d be surprised at how many brilliant ideas are lurking just beyond your initial inhibitions. Often the first fifteen to twenty minutes of Idea Time will seem fruitless, but as you push through the temptation to check your e-mail or do something on your task list, you will find yourself gaining traction on the problem. It takes our minds a bit of time to adjust and focus on what we’re really trying to do.
Putting time on your calendar to generate ideas is worth it. It will change your life and your career. Remember: Successful, consistently brilliant people do the little (too obvious, too simple, too commonsensical) things that no one else is doing. This is what will set you apart, too.
* Source: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry