When was the last time you came up with a brilliant idea, seemingly out of nowhere?
If you’re an ambitious, creative thinker, like me, you would love to be able to do this consistently. What if I told you there is a way to strategically come up with new and exciting ideas, would you put forth the effort?
Linus Bille has developed “The Ideation Equation“ to share his discovery of a neuro–natural path to become better at coming up with new and exciting ideas.
To prepare for “The Ideation Equation,” a lot of us will need to unlearn old ways of thinking that may be keeping us stuck in a box.
It Starts With Exploration
One of the main long-term activities that you could start with, is learning many different random things.
What does Linus mean by this?
Exploring different topics can help the brain’s ability to connect things.
I love the analogy of our minds being like a forest and every time we learn something new it’s like planting a new tree.
But be mindful of planting trees close together, because our brains will tend to try to find shortcuts to preserve energy and may not give us the best possible answers in a given situation.
As a possible solution to our lazy brains, we can have a large forest with similar trees by becoming an expert in a certain area, while still trying different things and learning as much as possible about other topics.
Being innovative means being diverse.
As Linus states, we’ll have a better chance at coming up with many unconventional creative ideas if we can plant and nurture a healthy mix of a wild rainforest and a cultivated commercial forest in our minds.
Applying The Equation
Linus Bille says that “The Ideation Equation” is more about the key activities or strategies for building a strong foundation for creative thinking. These key areas are not steps in a linear process but are effective since they help us to create unique results.
The five activities include:
- Learn about all sorts of random things: This one is pretty self-explanatory. But I want to point out that on top of being curious about different things, this also means being willing to invest time in learning about different subjects.
- Make use of the brain’s innate ability to connect things: Normally, our brains connect things subconsciously. But we can work on becoming more aware of this process, which would give us more access to creativity.
- Capture and make sense of the brain’s magic: To get great ideas, it’s important to acquire many ideas, and document as many of them as possible. When we first make connections between two things, it may seem ridiculous. But those connections could turn out to be a genius idea.
- Marinate in a specific challenge: If there’s ever a specific challenge that you want to address, try saturating your brain with information on that topic. In doing so, your brain will eventually connect enough dots to trigger an interesting idea, or maybe even a great one.
- Expand your thinking box: The key to expanding your thinking is to fully understand what your barriers are. It’s like discovering your blind spot and then using it to your advantage. Being able to consider more details can increase the probability of connecting things in unique ways.
Final Thoughts
I think it’s important to note that Linus reminds us that “The Ideation Equation” only goes so far in the formation of an idea. With any great idea, we have to evaluate and verify it with hypothesis testing.
Remember to never throw an idea away. As Linus puts it, even ideas that seem bad at first could eventually turn out to be a starting point for other ideas in the future.
Got any tips on increasing creativity? Leave a comment below!
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Sachi Reads Daily 