The method I am using to find ideas

Hi I have put together an idea generation method which is a bit of a synthesis of different advice I have seen here, by Paul Graham, Amy Hoy and some other places. I have been doing it for a few minutes and it has been quite fruitful so I will share and see what you think and see if we can build this up to something even better.

The idea is to look for problems not ideas. This is an often said adage of where us tech people go wrong!

Generating problems is a lot lot easier. There is nothing to think about really, just have a water cooling bitching session with yourself and take notes.

However you can take advantage of "combinatorial explosion" to generate hundreds of real micro-problems. Here is how:

1. Make a list for each of the following things:

• Roles you perform. This is broad. It could be your job of course (each hat you wear) and then hats you wear not at work. E.g. you might be someones friend, someones lover, someones mother. You might organise a meetup or volunteer or cook as a hobby or as a chore. Write a list of these roles.
• Hobbies and habits you recently started (including exercise regimes or diets)
• Disadvantages you have - illnesses, mental weaknesses, problems with your location (bad city? bad neighbours or housemates) etc.
• Recent large purchases - house and car are great, laptops and jewelry maybe, a big party?

Now you have a big list A

Here is your list B:

• I hate doing
• I was stuck today trying to
• I need help getting better at
• I purchased X because
• I complained about
• Wasted time on
• Failed to
• Always f* up
• Don't have time to
• Don't understand
• I get nervous
• I complained about

Now for each item in list A, go trough all items in list B, and make a sentence like this:

“As a [role from list A] [item from list B] ... ? ... because ... ? ...”

Or for other list A items start with:

• When I started [hobby from list A] ...
• Because I have [disadvantage from list A] ...
• Because I purchased [item from list A] ...

For example one of mine:

As a [Programmer] [i need help getting better at] [code reviews] because [they are essential to my job and the productivity and quality of the team]

The challenge is to come up with 30 in your list A, and say 20 sentences for each using list B for ideas.

And this will give you 600 problems.

This is a generation exercise so no need to filter or worry about some of them being rubbish problems at this stage. Later on you can choose a way to filter your problems, for example by "can I reach that market" "can I actually solve this" etc.