The host shares a productivity trick: brainstorm 20 ideas instead of stopping at three or four. Pushing past the obvious solutions gets you to the creative ones that actually work.
Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, this episode is much shorter than usual, rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today, I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday, and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go. Hope you enjoy it. One of my favorite things to do is tackle big challenges. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm just like anybody else. Given the choice, I'd rather have things easier than harder. But I find that there's nothing like a big, complex challenge to get the creativity juices flowing. So after I gather data, I look for information, do my research, gather opinions. I'll typically start a brainstorming session. And one of my favorite techniques for brainstorming is to write down 20 possible solutions or ideas for tackling the problem. Now, it might sound super simple, right? Maybe nothing revolutionary there, but I'm constantly surprised by how effective this little process is. So here's what I've found. The first five to ten ideas flow onto the page very quickly. That's the obvious stuff, the obvious solutions. Once I get to about 10 ideas, I start slowing down. I even get a little bit distracted because they're just not coming out. They're not flowing out of my brain that easily. So ideas 11 to 15 take a bit more thinking. It's not horrible in terms of the thought process and how long they take, but it's definitely a lot slower. Once I get to about 15, I almost always feel like I've run out of ideas. It just starts feeling like there's nothing more within reason I could do to tackle the challenge effectively. But the deal is I've set a rule here with myself, and that is that I have to get to at least 20 items on my list. So I just push myself to do so. I just trust the process. And very often what helps me is I'll go outside, I'll leave my office, go outside with a notebook or at least with my phone so I can record a voice memo here and there. I'll even go out for a walk or back when you could do this to a coffee shop. And little by little, as I kind of change my environment, a few new ideas start emerging. And some of them even come to me on the drive back home or on the walk back home. But the deal is I don't stop until I get to at least 20. I now here's what I've noticed again. Ideas 1 to 10 are typically on they're easier to come up with, and they're on the decent to good end of the scale. Ideas 11 through 15 are typically very good and more creative. Some are worth trying, but the best ideas, the ones that have the biggest promise, are almost always in that 16 to 20 group right toward the end of the list. Why is that? I believe that much of what comes out toward the end is a product of your subconscious mind, which needs time to do its thing. It needs that marinating, it needs that simmering. And that's why it's important to stretch yourself and to go beyond the first 10, even when you feel that the best solution is probably in that group. Even if it feels counterproductive to go beyond the 10 because most big, complex challenges require truly creative solutions. Sure, you might band aid the problem effectively with an easier, more obvious answer or solution, but it requires creative and unconstrained ideas that reside time the proven mindset, strategies and actions to prosper. As a freelance writer, you can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.
