Pieces Clicking Into Place

One of the big messages of Group Genius is that innovation is about collecting and connecting small sparks of creativity, not about singular moments of revelation. One concept that is repeated over and over is that the key to having good ideas is having a lot of ideas and then figuring out which ones are good. Another is the notion that creative insights come from long immersion in the problem domain, followed by time off to reflect. While reading it, I came to realize I’ve been unknowingly trying to structure my time around both of these principles.

My approach to tackling the first idea is to try to stop questioning the value or quality of things I create. I’m trying to blog more in part because I know that forcing myself to write, even if most of the things I’m writing are glorified book reports, will eventually kick loose stuff I’m really happy with. Not being brilliant all of the time is price I have to pay to be brilliant some of the time, and I can live with that.

I’ve noticed myself doing two things that help with the second concept. First, I’ve found that I do my best work on a project when I work on it every day, if even it's just a little bit. Now, for every project I take on, I reserve at least thirty minutes every day to spend on it. If I can’t find that time, I have to pass on the project; experience tells me I'm not going to be able to do it justice. I’ve only started doing this recently, but it’s proven to be really powerful, and it helps me keep myself honest about what I really do and don’t have time for.

The other thing that I’m slowly realizing the value of is a small amount of unstructured, “thoughtless” time each day to let the things I’ve been thinking about coalesce. Washing the dishes is something I try to do every day, not just because it helps keep the house clean, but because it’s also a repetitive, almost hypnotic task that lets bits of my brain rearrange themselves. In the kitchen doing dishes has become my second-most-common place to have good ideas. (The shower is still king, but for pretty much the same reason.)

I listened to an old episode of the Radiolab podcast this morning that talked about priming and our increasing understanding of how the brain works. What I love about books like Group Genius is how they help me turn that understanding into something I can use to make mine work better.



Comments

[Andrew J Bonham]

The concept of "throwing it at the wall and seeing what sticks" has become almost a cliche, but it's persevered for a reason: it works. It's interesting seeing this concept echoed in your post and in several recent posts from another Santa Barbaran I follow ( http://colinmarshall.livejournal.com ). It's certainly an area I could improve on myself.

Your "30 minutes per day, or I don't have time" is great and I plan to steal and implement it myself. I believe the appropriate phrase is "yoink!"

Thanks for the post!

[Rob Donoghue]

I tell you this; one unexpected twist of producing every day is that I produce a lot of stuff I'm not entirely happy with - stuff I know could be a hell of a lot better with a few days to polish it.

At first this was very frustrating, but over time I've come to see it as a good thing. It's not that the stuff I;m producing is *bad*, and the fact that it could be better just means that if there's ever a day I want to come back and MAKE it better, that option is open to me.

-Rob D.