I’ve got an idea!
Let’s talk about ideas, such a small word for something that’s potentially so big, hey?
The pressure to come up with a new idea whatever it may be for, can be daunting. For some ideas and solutions seem to come out of their pores, you hear of people getting them when they are in the shower, when they wake up, when they walk the dog, when they are sat on the loo!
For others it may take a bit of time, hard work. So to help demystify they ideas process, we’ve come up with a few tricks to help create or indeed hone down some of your ideas.
1.Take the pressure off yourself
Does this scenario sound familiar? You’re sat at your dining room table desperately, trying to think of the next best selling product or solution to that issue that’s been bugging you. You’ve set an hour aside, your pen is poised, paper is ready.
Then you look up at the clock, you’ve been sat there for 55 minutes and all you’ve written is the title ‘ideas’ and underlined it twice. The rest of your paper is blank. Sound familiar? If you can resonate take some time out sometimes just sitting down with a pen a paper just doesn’t work, your brain is just not ready. It doesn’t want to work to your schedule. So take the pressure off and break your hour into 10 minute chunks. Go make yourself a drink, get up walk around and try some of the ideas below.
2. GO FOR A WALK
Simple yet effective. If you’re having a bit of writer’s block get up from where you are and walk around. Explore your environment. Invite your brain to stop thinking. OK we realise this sounds counter intuitive, but bear with us. Switching off your brain to explore and appreciate the world around you will reactivate it when you get back to it and get you to think a bit differently. This is sometimes the reason why your ideas come to you in the shower or when your about to drift off to sleep. Your brain has stopped thinking about getting through the day and is able to relax.
So if you’re able to go outside, what do you notice…colours? Details? What can you smell? What are you drawn to? If you’re inside and exploring your home/office what are you drawn to?
Look at things around you… what are the textures/details you’re noticing? Have you seen something
you’ve never noticed before? Now with these new thoughts in your head, come back to your paper and just capture what you’ve seen. You might find this technique sparks a thought and leads you down a different path for your ideas. At the very least it should reset your brain and get your creative juices flowing again.
3. Two heads are better than one
It can be true, two heads are sometimes better than one (three heads can also be better than two). Grab yourself a couple of trusted friends/colleagues, whatever
works. The key thing here is that you want people that speak out, those willing to offer their ideas. You need people that are supportive, imaginative and that can
express thoughts and help you along your way to finding that one idea that just works.
4. building it up
As we all know, having an idea and putting it into action are very much two different things. Once you have an idea, try building upon it, take it to the next level.
Pressure test your idea, does it have legs? Think about how you can put it into action? What are the timescales? How do you get there? Can you do it now?
What you do need to do is get it all down on paper or record it, whatever works, just don’t lose those creative juices that you’ve spent so long trying to pin down.
Your idea however it is right now is like a little seedling, give it the space to breathe and grow, don’t put pressure on yourself if it’s not quite fully formed, it will get there. Don’t be afraid to ask for help (putting yourself out there is scary we know but if you do your get help/support back in spades).
Most of all trust and believe in yourself.
Places to find inspiration
Pintrest is a great place to find inspiration when your stuck for ideas. Simply type in a key word and your have lots of inspiring images pop up . This is a great place to start an idea too.
Traditional, yet a fantastic resource for ideas join your local library not only can you of course take a visit you can look online for their magazine downloads and in the British library you can also access some great online and off line resources.
Your local highstreet is another great resource – Full of sights, smells, creativity and originality.
There are tons more, if you want to find out how we can also help generate ideas with you – get in touch. There’s nothing we’d like more.
