Three Uncommon Ideation-Techniques

This is for you if you’re struggling to make your ideas pop.

If you have ideas but they are surface-level, if you find that you can’t dig deeper, you’re struggling to scratch beneath the surface and take the idea further.

That used to be me until I developed these 3 methods.

Making the ideas better

As with all ideas though, the basis might not be enough.

I might be frustrated about bad meeting management or wanting to curb my procrastination habit but that’s not enough to work with. You need a way to work through first idea to get to something worth writing about.

Writing is about emotion but it's also about solving a problem. You can't just rant, I mean, you probably can but I'm not sure how many people will listen. Instead, you must turn your frustration into a problem to be solved, and then solve it.

Here are the 3 methods I use to take an idea and go deeper:

• Inverse thinking
• Two opposing concepts together
• Centrifugal thinking with first principles

Let me talk you through them one by one.

1. Inverse thinking*

So let’s say I’m wound up about the shitshow that meetings can be. I mean, seriously.

Now, I know I’m mad but I don’t know why I’m mad. I know some meetings are bad but I don’t know why they are bad. That’s where inverse thinking comes in.

Question 1: how would I make [thing] worse?

Well, I have a few ideas:

• No agenda
• No objectives
• Not take notes
• Invite everyone
• Lack of facilitation

The list goes on (I mean it really goes on and on). But once you’ve got your entire list (or have to stop yourself because it's 33 hours later) you flip it.

Question 2: what is the opposite of that?

• Ask someone to take notes
• Invite only the people I need
• Clear agenda with times and owners
• Clear objectives that are communicated
• Check all access before the meeting starts
• Be clear that the session is time-bound so will be facilitated

All of a sudden we have our set of problems and a set of solutions. Just by using a simple technique like this, all of a sudden you’ve got an idea with structure.

And there you are, offering a solution to a problem, rather than just ranting about it.

2. Two opposing concepts*

This technique is about holding two opposing views in your mind and asking how they could exist together.

That might not make sense yet but let me explain with an example.

Let’s take laziness and productivity. Generally, most people would agree that productivity is the opposite of laziness. But, the question here is how these two things can exist together.

The technique is about taking two opposing concepts (laziness and productivity, happiness and sadness, confidence and a lack of it) and ask, how do these two ideas live together?

Let's take the laziness and productivity ideas and offer some new ideas:

• Laziness might be evidence of a poor fit
• Laziness could be used to maximise productivity
• Could productivity and laziness work well together?
• Could you use laziness as an incentive for productivity?

You see, by holding two opposite ideas together you find some exciting ideas in the cracks. They need exploring more, sure but they serve as seeds to get you started.

3. Centrifugal thinking*

A centrifuge is something I used to use in the lab.

It spins liquids around super fast to separate out liquids at different densities. The idea here is to ‘spin the idea around’ and see what drops out. To do this you work through a 3-step process:

1. State a commonly held belief:

E.g. habits are the way you improve your life.

2. List out all the other reasons someone succeeds:

• Luck
• Genetics
• Environment
• Family dynamic
• Luck is invisible
• Thinking patterns

3. Put it back together and see how it fits

• Survivor bias
• Habits are genetics
• Habits are about thinking patterns
• Habits are a result of the environment
• Habits are built easier early in life — i.e. parenting matters

You see, after 3 steps you now have a much more interesting set of ideas. More angles to work from and more depth for your idea. I’m not saying any of these are right or wrong, but what it does do is give you more content to work with.

Putting it altogether

Idea generation is at the heart of great article writing.

The best articles are adding something to the existing body of work. The best writers add a new angle, idea, voice, or story to the narrative. They make the reader think deeper.

These techniques have worked wonders for me. They have allowed me to go deeper into my ideas, explore the depths of an idea that I didn’t even know existed and come back up with a unique view of the thing I’m talking about.

Readers don’t want to read the same thing over and over again.

We’ve all read the 10 productivity hacks to transform your life, it’s always the same 10 things on the list. Instead, we want new and this is how you develop that.