3 ways to find ideas, even if you are at an impasse
Productivity / / December 23, 2019
Before the deadline for four hours. You have not yet started. In a head - a void. Each first I have been in a situation where creativity is lost on the horizon. How to get out of the swamp and give an idea that will work? The answer is simpler than it seems. It is only necessary at the right time to take advantage of the right tools.
A tool that will help formulate the idea, even if the head porridge, called associative brainstorming.
Good ideas do not come to us on request. Applying the technique of associative thinking, we stop to think straight-line basis, take out the thoughts of the rut. Association sent the mind in free flight, allowing you to get creative ideas from the subconscious bins.
Soon you will exclaim "Eureka!"
Important! Put defined goals for your association. Vague objectives lead to vague results.
vocabulary Association
Word Storm - a variant brainstormingWhere, as you know, focus on words. Write the word that is relevant to your project or task. And in the opposite column write down all the words of associations that do emerge in the memory.
Do not pop up? Start asking questions, answering them as widely as possible and quickly. A sample list:
- What it is?
- What is it for?
- How it works?
- What comparisons can choose the way?
- What are antonyms?
Another way - to use the mechanism of occurrence of association, which described more Aristotle. According to his theory, the relationship between objects in our imagination arise in three ways.
- Adjacency. When one object is perceived as a companion to another. For example, a coffee drink with cream, sugar, biscuits, lemon and so on.
- similarity. If one thing is like another, or the same acts, on the basis of this similarity, there is an association. Donut round like a wheel, and a cold shower and the spring rain cause roughly the same sensation.
- Contrast. Contrast harmful fast food is a healthy salad from fresh vegetables - this is a simple example. But in general, the association, based on the opposition, lead to the most unexpected ideas.
If you still do not get to choose a single word, consult the case. Take the largest explanatory dictionary, which can be found on their shelves. Open it without looking at any place, and with your eyes closed lower finger on the page. Write down a word that will be closer to the finger, even if you do not like it or you do not know its meaning (look in the dictionary). Five or six words would be enough to start the mechanism of creative production. The impact of random words immediately evokes this uncontrolled process. For those who do not have a dictionary, invented generators random words.
free association
Free association - a continuation of the dictionary, which provide even more ideas. In accordance with this technique you push just two words. Take a list of word associations, write them in the form of two identical columns and see what happens, if you associate words with each other. Combination - this idea.
The more links you will find, the higher the probability of finding among them a good idea, although many options come to mind would be absurd and wild. A few things in general will not have a relationship to work. But it normal.
We are used to thinking must be strictly rational, so we reject all the ideas that do not make sense. You need to take control of this reflex, and change the attitude to new ideas. Every time you look at the association and think that it is meaningless to ask yourself: "What you need to sense there was in it?"
You'll have to answer, and it is the same exercise for the brain, like squats and pull-ups - for the muscles.
mind map
This technique literally put your ideas on the card, it is a simple method of visualization and structuring of information and large amounts of data.
Maps thoughts look like a branching tree. In the role of a trunk is the main idea, which is distributed to associations and details. For information on how to grow a tree, already Layfhaker I wrote.
Maps build a simple hierarchy of ideas, the more so for them invented many mobileapplicationsThat allow you to modify and rebuild the map.
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