Generating ideas doesn’t have to involve a painstaking brainstorming session; it can actually occur quite organically.
Since I’ve started writing I have found a few things that reliably allow me to come up with all sorts of ideas.
3 of the easiest and most reliable follow;
Tip 1. Do something different
Our brains easily fall into the patterns of daily life: driving the same way to work, talking to the same people, and doing the same things every day.
No wonder you can’t think of anything new!
You’re not doing anything new!
I’ve found it so valuable to do things I otherwise wouldn’t, for instance, I use my daily walk as an idea-generating machine. I’ve found my best ideas come when I reverse the track that I walk or stop at a spot I otherwise wouldn’t.
By the way here’s a post about why you should walk every day as a creative;
Changing your scenery forces your brain to become more active, and more involved.
Luckily for us creatives, the very design of our brain highlights things we like and take inspiration from them.
Our brain is always working in the background.
So when you jolt your brain with a change in your daily routine, it becomes more active and more creative, generating more ideas.
Tip 2. Experience Boredom
I’m a BIG proponent of willful boredom.
If I have nothing to do quite often I will just sit by my bedroom window and stare out at the scenery.
After a while, this becomes extremely boring.
That’s what we want!
When boredom strikes a creative individual, the creative part of the brain lights up, prompting thoughts like, “Hey, I could do something with this concept,” reigniting motivation.
Try it out; be bored for 10 minutes and do nothing.
I bet you will come out of that 10 minutes with some sort of direction of what you want to create next.
Tip 3. Mix Stuff Up
The best ideas often emerge when combining two entirely different things in a unique way.
I love lots of things so being active in mixing genres concepts or environments breeds creative ideas.
I’ve trained myself to see a workable idea through a drawing inspiration technique I do.
I really enjoy creature design.
So when I want to come up with some new funky creature design I will get a random animal generator, and get it to spit out 2 or 3 random animals, that I have to use to create a unique design of a creature for a story I am going to write.
Using this method of slicing different media and information contributed massively to creating many many ideas and creative concepts.
Conclusion
Basically, the way to generate new ideas organically, is to;
- Put yourself out of the ordinary everyday
- Spend time being bored
- Mix your interests
I hope you can apply at least one of these things to your work, so you can create all sorts of wonderfully creative things.
If you enjoyed this post perhaps you will like this one about how to get yourself to write consistently through discipline;
Thanks for reading. Happy Writing 🙂
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