How to brainstorm
I’m often asked how I come up with so many ideas (the great ones are usually for other people!). I love to bounce off other people and their train of thought, but sometimes you just have to put some attention to a problem or an issue by brainstorming.
A brainstorm is a creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas or solutions to a problem. You can brainstorm alone or with others. You may have a preference for one over the other or you might choose a combination of both depending on the subject matter and your personal attachment to a problem or idea.
If you’re better at brainstorming alone, go to your creative space where you usually have those ‘aha!’ moments. This could be the bath, the park, the train, running or gardening. Take a notepad so you don’t let the ideas slip by.
If you work better when you can bounce your ideas off others, then a brainstorm with friends over tea or tequila could be right for you. In that case, you will need a whiteboard or butchers’ paper.
There’s only one rule to brainstorming: there is no such thing as a bad idea. Brainstorming is not the time for feasibility or analysis. Everything is a possibility during a brainstorm. There is no editing. If you’re on your own, you simply jot down everything that comes to mind. If you’re in a group, jot down everything everyone says. Leave the culling for later, as often one idea will bounce off another and you end up in a totally different place than where you started. Allow plenty of time but don’t squeeze it too dry.
After you have collected all the ideas or solutions, start narrowing them down to themes or group together similar thought patterns. From there, prioritise the top three to five and take them to the next level of ideas that might be feasible or acheivable in the real world. But don’t throw out the other ideas – you never know when you might need them! Where is your favourite place to brainstorm?