How to Become an Idea Generation Machine

We are masters of self-loathing: I’m not creative enough. I can’t think of anything new. Most of what I think is already being implemented. Am I doomed for life?

It’s counterintuitive, but we do generate a lot of creative ideas daily. In fact, more than 6,000 thoughts cross our minds per day (study). We’re full of it, just like the Lego box.

The problem is not generating ideas but generating novel ideas. At least 90% of the ideas are either average or don’t strike a chord.

Here’s the relief: the 10% ideas you get in your mind every day are the golden nuggets. And you don’t have to be extraordinary to generate these novel ideas. That’s not where most fail. Most of us fail because we don’t even allow ideas to be born and raised. And if we do allow them, we fail to capture them.

David Allen says the brain is to generate ideas, not to store them. Instead of making our mind a thinker in chief, we treat it like a store owner. And leave every idea in the hands of mother memory — which eventually makes the idea orphan.

THE PROBLEM: Why is it Hard to Generate Ideas?

1. Overloading the Mind: Our mind has numerous background tasks to perform. Injecting another idea and trying to remember it is like opening the 10th tab in Chrome. Your mind will crash.

2. Analysis Paralysis: When you hit the ‘aha moment,’ you get a rush of dopamine to execute it — something that your mind dearly dislikes immediately. So it puts it off by analyzing it and concluding it’s not good enough. And as soon as you finish the shower and go back to the room, the idea becomes a faint memory.

So, how can we generate, capture, and nurture ideas that are novel and inspiring? The answer is in developing a system — DDS.

THE SOLUTION: Dump, Dive, Search

Creative legends have one thing in common; they are utterly disciplined. Think Charles Bukowski, Hans Zimmer, Christopher Nolan, or Ryan Holiday. They don’t have an extra brain to delegate idea generation tasks. Instead, they have a system that works like a factory of ideas. And it starts with…

1. Brain Dump: The Idea Vomit

Creativity occurs spontaneously — almost like a spurt. Remember that last time you had an amazing idea? Chances are you were driving, showering, or cuddling with your dog. And not brainstorming in front of a laptop.
The truth is creative ideas occur when we least expect them. It’s counterintuitive actually; when you force yourself to be more creative, you produce garbage.

The workaround to capturing the momentary creative insights is a brain dump. Whenever an idea, insight, or thought occurs, dump it off your mind on a medium. Jot it on a notepad with a pencil or a to-do app on your phone. The rule is to dump it without a second thought — even if it’s as weird as building a dog kennel made of glass. No matter, vomit it out.

2. Dive in the Dump

Don’t start executing your ideas just yet. Remember, most of them would be boring, repetitive, or copied. In this step, you have to look at ideas from eagles’ eyes. Ideas that create a spark in mind aren’t just random outbursts of energy. They have a meaning and purpose to them — which we can’t understand with just the mind itself.

Diving in the idea dump is a way to find that meaning between ideas and form a connection. Scroll through your to-do list, flip the pages of your notebook, and try to connect them backward. An idea you got 10 days back might be another piece of the puzzle you thought about today. Now, what if you haven’t recorded the older idea? You’d have missed out on a great creative burst.

3. Search for the Nuggets

Now that you’ve connected the puzzles trim the borders. Yes, out of these ideas, even a fraction would be the most novel. Search for the golden nuggets. When you resurface after diving in the dump, you’d be in a Eureka state. We often forget that innovations are the product of self-awareness.

After you find the nuggets, zero in on them, Hemingway said, “the only writing is rewriting.” Expand this philosophy to other domains. Naval once said, “Learn from times iterated over time spent.” You won’t get a groundbreaking idea on day one.

Intellectual improvements follow a nonlinear curve. Iterate on your nuggets, fail, find what works, then exploit it. That’s how you become an idea generation machine.

Lastly, share your ideas and build a circle of learners.

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