Five Ways to Keep Your Ideas Fresh

Recently I read an article that stated, "The number one word used in LinkedIn profiles is 'creative'." 

Considering so many people describe themselves in that manner, I've come to believe being "creative" comes in a many different shapes and sizes. But for purposes of this article, I'm going to center on one aspect of being creative - specifically being able to coming up with new ideas.

Generating a new idea involves allowing one of the most complex machines on earth to synthesize a tremendous amount of information, connect dots that were not necessarily connected before, and come to a conclusion previously not arrived at. 

While that seems rather simple, I bet if you ask someone who regularly seeks to be creative, they would admit that coming up with a unique idea can be be challenging. 

We are creatures of habit after all. Our brains like to follow paths we are already familiar with, and breaking those patterns can require a bit of effort. For me, I try to make that effort on a daily basis.

So here's the top five ways I try to keep my brain engaged and ideas flowing freely. 

Five Ways to Keep Your Ideas Fresh

1. Don't go full steam ahead.

In our eagerness to approach a project head on, we forget the value in looking at things from multiple vantage points. I like to describe this process as turning things upside down, inside out or flipping (reversing) them. In essence, it's re-evaluating what exactly it is you are trying to solve. It's a good discipline to develop, particularly when approaching things seem they are more of a problem than an opportunity.

2. Ask the most basic, simple questions upfront.

Ever walk into a meeting or dial into a conference call not completely sure what the agenda is? You are not alone. All to often we are pressured to accomplish a task or project we lose sight of the real purpose. Fully understanding "why", or strategy, behind something will make all the difference in the eventual outcome.

3. Expand your horizons.

What are you expert in? Whatever it is, you likely spend a lot of time honing your skills and expanding your knowledge base to stay on top of your game. But just as valuable is spending an equal amount of time learning something new. Select something that might be adjunct to what you do, or even polar opposite. Learning about something completely different can eventually turn into a rich, fertile ground for avant guarde ideas and inspiration.

4. Read voraciously.

Let's face it. We live in the age of information. The amount of readily available content is mind-blowing. Google a phrase or topic and there are billions of results. So there is never a lack of information to digest.

While it might feel overwhelming, develop a discipline to read articles, white papers, news, blogs, etc. - it matters little the delivery channel but more about keeping on top of what is current and trending. Most executives devote an hour each day (usually very early in the morning!) to the quiet solitude of immersing themselves in consuming content.

On occasion, including things you normally would not gravitate towards - even topics that you purposely avoid. Reading something that you are not intimately familiar with makes your mind slow down and dissect the information in order to grasp the meaning or fully appreciate the concept or point of view.

5. Unplug, unwind and don't be afraid to jot things down dripping wet.

When do you do your best thinking? If you are like me, it's when you are disengaged from the daily reality of life. When you are focusing your concentration, it is very difficult to "let go" for short spurts of time.  The best way to let your mind wander is to give it the freedom to do so. Yes, even in our busy lives, it is possible to carve out time to "just think". It might mean during a quick shower. Or while on a solitary walk through a park. Or even during a traffic-snarled cab ride to the airport. The point is, you can find the downtime if you make it a priority.

Hope you find these tips useful and your next big idea waiting for you right around the corner.

Trusting Your Gut

In our life's journey, we get to a point where we need to make an important decision that involves two or more potential choices. 

Typically, each option is a viable one, but each one presents positive and negative ramifications. 

How do we decide which is the best option to pick? The right path to take?

There are scores of books, articles, flow charts, processes and people ready to give an answer to that question. Interestingly enough, just like the complexity facing the decision-maker, the solution providers offer just as many choices further exasperating the task at hand.

But it seems to me that the most important driver in these important decisions tends to be a non-scientific, unjustifiable, indescribable one. Well, there is one universal term I'm aware of for it....

Your gut.

We all have had that experience. That moment when something just feels right. We are filled with a sudden sense of calm. Sereneness. A small smile may emerge or even a gentle nodding of our heads.  We might even think to ourselves - ah yes, this all makes sense now.

Sometimes it's not what we logically anticipated as the right answer at all. It might even be the polar opposite. Or an option not seriously considered or maybe one not even thought of in the first place. It may be just acknowledging that what we felt was the best option really is the best, but perhaps reconciling it will be the toughest to implement. The more difficult road versus the path of least resistance. Or visa-versa.

Of course then the question becomes - how is our gut formed and should we trust it? On this, there are scores of opinions too. 

Here's mine: our "gut" is a combination of two things - logic and intuition. Our gut is the beautiful swirling together of these aspects of our human-ness as they reconcile the struggle to unify and agree to a final decision.  

Our logical side wants the decision to be bullet-proof in it's selection rationale. This is fed by a tremendous amount of external input - our own life experiences, opinions of others, facts, data and trends that may be overlaid, intertwined and pulled apart to systematically review each option and winnow away the inferior option. Leaving just the best for last.

Our intuition wants us to solely rely on the intangibles to make the decision. Feelings and emotions. And how we "read" the feelings and emotions of others as they react to the various choices. Past experiences also come into play - but often recalling the emotional connection tied to those past decisions - not necessarily the resulting outcomes.

In the end, all this information stops swirling and comes to rest. Whether in a quiet moment or while walking among thousands on a busy city street, the decision, and realization we have made the decision, just seems to hit us in the pit of our stomach. Our gut has spoken.

Should we trust our gut? I believe so. We have read countless stories of times where individuals have made a decision despite being adamantly urged or pressured to select or choose something to the contrary. When they are proven right, the words, "it just felt like the right thing to do at the time" seem to magically appear over and over.

Can our gut be wrong? Of course. But I believe that the vast majority of times we can sense the right path to take, decision to make, future to pursue, if we dim the chorus of complexity and listen closely to what our simplistic inner-self is trying to say.

Photo By Mitya Ilyinov (originally posted to Flickr as crossroads) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons