Get 20 ideas in 5 minutes
Konstantin Starodetskii
How often do you get stuck because you think that you don’t have any more ideas? Most of the time, there are two general settings in which you can struggle to work on your creative piece.
1) You either sit in a crowded coffee shop where there are lots of noises, aromas, conversations.
2) You lock yourself in a fully isolated room at home, where everything is perfectly tuned for writing in peace.
In both scenarios, you will come to a point where you have no clue what to write next. This situation makes you anxious and frustrated, and it seems like it's better to give up or work on something else.
Hold on. There's a cool and fun practice that you can do to hack into the treasure room of your beautiful mind. Each time I use it, I get a bunch of brand-new ideas within the first minute.
Here are a few simple tools you’ll need for the practice:
· Pen/Pencil
· Notepad
· A timer (a smartphone will do)
· 2-3 Brand New Magazines
The essential part here is to get the newest magazines because it has to be something that you haven't heard, watched, or read before. It has to be new to you. All magazines have to be different and, ideally, the ones that you usually don’t read. The main reason for using magazines in the first place is that they have tons of images.
Find yourself a quiet room where no one will distract you, could be a library reading room or your home (if you live with a partner or a family, a library would probably be the safest bet), and get all your tools on the table. Now comes the fun part.
Tune your mind on one specific project that you need new ideas for. Let’s say, for me, that would be brainstorming ideas for a new outline for my TV pilot screenplay. That could be applied for discovering new ideas for any project: public speeches, business, books, movies, etc.
Set your timer for 5 min and start turning the pages with an approximately 5-second interval. As you scan each page, focus on images only. Skip all the text. Keep your mind concentrated on the project, that you need new ideas for, and the moment you see an image in the magazine that gives you an original thought, write it down in the notepad. Avoid describing in detail, just the main point in a few words.
Allow your mind to float freely. The image content is not as much important as the thought process that it triggers in your head. The idea that comes to you from the image can be entirely different than the image itself!
If you didn’t find anything useful, then move to the next page. The key here is not to get stuck trying to force an idea out of your mind. Don’t spend more than 30 seconds on each page. If nothing comes to your account, keep turning the pages. Go through all the fresh magazines that you’ve got for yourself.
When you finish your process, look at your notepad and see how many ideas you got in 5 minutes if you weren't distracted by the surroundings, you can have 10-20 new ones shining at you.
Now, you have something to work with. Grab a pen and be merciless, choose 3 best ideas, and expand them to a few sentences. Finally, pick your best idea and go conquer the world! BONUS TIP: If you don't want to buy magazines, go to your local library, and you'll have them for free.
Use this technique each time you feel like you run out of ideas. You’ll immediately prove to yourself that you are way more creative than you thought. It will feel like Genie from the magic lamp fueled your brain with creativity.
I used this process to create my music videos.