12 Ways To Come Up With Great Ideas

It's what everything starts with, but it's often the hardest part. A
great idea is what drives us forward, what sparks progress and what
sets a good business apart. But too often, we're stuck for inspiration.
The mind gets caught in a creativity rut in which we're bankrupt of
imagination.
The best ideas sometimes come from looking outside the familiar; from
exposing oneself to different realities and being prepared when for the
epiphany hits. That is exactly what "thinking outside the box" means.
Here are some ways to break out of the dreadful, mind-numbing mental
practices that stunt idea generation before it can bear fruit.



1- Read a lot

Like your body, you mind needs exercise. It gets it through challenges
and nourishment. One good way to feed your mind is to study up on the
ideas and works of smart people. The case studies and biographies of
men who have been wildly successful are particularly inspirational.
Read their profiles and see how they trained their minds to generate
great ideas.
There's also value in reading intelligent publications like Forbes ,
Business Week , The Economist , and other respected magazines. Reading
the thoughts of others will draw your own brilliant musings to the
surface.




2- Milk your creative mood

You have to leave a lot to chance. Sometimes you may be borderline
brain-dead, but other times you may be channeling Einstein. The problem
is that the brilliant spells may not happen when you need them to.
Don't let that stop you. When you're struck by genius, milk the moment
for what it's worth. Let your ideas gush like an opened fire hydrant
and suck it dry. You'll be amazed at what you'll get when you give your
mind room to play.




3- Carry a notepad

When the brilliant spells do come, make sure you preserve them. Don't
rely on mental notes, you'll just forget them. Have a notepad, PDA or
voice recorder nearby at all times, including your bed (for when you
suddenly strike gold at 2 a.m.). Once you've recorded your idea, use it
as soon as you can. Like fruit, ideas are best when they're fresh.


4- Pick peoples' brains

One of the best ways to develop good ideas is to bounce them off
others. People have different views, different influences and different
backgrounds that make their minds work in unique ways. When you throw
an idea around a group, you can gain new perspectives to incorporate
into it. Something that never occurred to you will come up, and you can
polish your original conception with more input.
Never dismiss anyone else's ideas. Some things may sound silly, but
they could simply be crude gems waiting to be refined. Furthermore,
when you keep a brainstorming session open and non-judgmental, you
encourage people's imaginations to go at full tilt.



5- Recreate creative surroundings

Sometimes all that's required for inspiration is a change of setting.
Your brain subconsciously shifts into different modes depending on your
location. When you're at your desk, you may function on a very narrow,
task-based plane. This would make the workplace environment one of the
worst idea-rousers.

So take a walk. Work out at the gym. Sit by a lake. Go someplace new where you can let your body and mind wander freely.

6- Cross the generation gap

The minds of children are still fresh and unrepressed by social
constrictions. They look at the world with untapped wonder; their
innocence hasn't been hammered out by adult experience. Talk to kids to
enter their simple and uncontained view. Ask them what they think about
whatever you're trying to solve. You might be surprised. The best part
is that kids aren't always trying to impress others, so they'll be
completely honest.

On the flip side, you should also consult older folks.
They've seen and done it all and their wisdom is severely underrated.
The perspective of a seasoned and well-trained mind will both steer you
in the right direction and keep you out of trouble.




7- Use your go-to guy

We all have that all-knowing buddy who seems to have an answer to
everything. So if he helps you with your personal issues, why not hit
him up for your professional and creative ones?




8- Question authority

Forget about protocol for a moment. Guidelines are good, but they can
be like horse blinders, keeping you from seeing the full panorama of
ideas. Step outside the rules once in a while. Try new ways of doing
things, no matter how time-tested the regular routine may be. The most
brilliant ideas have always had a touch of rebelliousness, so you need
to question the very system that they emerged out of.


9- Stick to what you know

It's good to let your mind run free, but at the same time you have to
stick to your area of expertise. Don't try to solve a financial problem
if you're a designer. An idea may work brilliantly in one area and
disastrously in another. If you need to move into foreign territory,
run your ideas through an expert in the area and let him tailor it to
his needs.



10- Make free associations

This a popular exercise among authors with writer's block: just put pen
to paper and write down whatever comes to mind. Start with your problem
and just make free associations, no matter how absurd. Structure it
like a flow chart, where one concept leads into the next. In the end
you may end up with something completely unrelated, but you'll have
given your mind a creativity injection. Who knows -- what you end up
with might just be the answer you needed.


11- Expand on past ideas

Ideas are like computers: Every once in a while they need to be
upgraded. Take your great ideas of the past and build on them. Improve
them. Add shiny attachments; fit them with a nitro-booster. Do this by
writing down the original concept on a piece of paper and brainstorm
ways to juice it up. Can it be combined with another great idea? Great,
try it out.



12- Use your muse

Is there an object, a song, a place, or a person whose presence alone
is rocket fuel for your imagination? Take advantage. Do whatever you
need to get yourself close to it and take the time to let your muse's
magic rays rev up your engines.




Corporations, especially those in creative industries like design and
publicity, spend fortunes on seminars that teach their workers how to
free their imaginations and become hotbeds of great ideas. Many of them
even ask for weekly idea lists that are compiled into giant databases.
In this kind of environment, there's no such thing as a bad idea --
only unrefined ones.
So make like the visionaries and keep the ideas coming hard by
challenging your mind to go outside its comfort zone. Rebel a bit and your imagination will soar.



Resources:

www.inc.com

www.microsoft.com

http://iraszl.brinkster.net