Link to said article
Mitch Ditkoff's article, "14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas," is a short article which discusses ways in which creative individuals (or those who wish to be creative) can form ideas. As advertise, the article features 14 methods to form great ideas. Some points of the article seem to say "just do random things and ideas will come when you don't expect it." There is truth to this, but it seems to me to be rather common knowledge. Other ways of the 14 are about embracing daydreaming, and out of line thinking, these methods are far more inspiring because daydreaming is often negatively looked upon. Some of his best methods are the ones which would seem most obvious, ideas like brainstorming or group thinking. Of the 14 ideas for getting ideas, I found 3 to be ideas which seemed ideal.
Way 5, Fantasize, is a method which I think is one of the best. Its so simple yet so unorthodox. People forget about fantasizing when they get rolled up in their daily lives. It seems to be a perfect agent to allow the flow of creativity and promote good ideas.
Way 12, "Look for happy accidents" was good for two reasons. First, I love the idea of happy accidents, because accidents usually result in a negative outcome, but we are all familiar with some that end up well. Second, the reference to penicillin is just too perfect. Its such an appropriate example of a good idea that happened on accident.
My favorite idea was number 14, "Suspend Logic." I found this one particularly intuitive because it stands alone. Many of the ideas are themselves methodical, a sort of step-by-step guide to getting good ideas. The suggestion of suspending logic circumvents most ways of being creative in an adult life which is largely uncreative. Instead of trying to force creativity out with a sort of remedy, step 14 suggests that you simply let the creativity already within you out.
So I tried one of his ideas (as prompted at the end of each section). I picked what I thought would be applicable and suited to my personality. I followed the prompt of number 5.
Think of a current challenge of yours. What would a fantasy solution to this challenge look like?
My challenge is getting motivated to write a paper for one of my classes.
So I thought of the most fantasy-esque solutions to my problem, I would summon a paper-writing zombie to write the paper for me. When I thought of this I felt this solution would be inconsequential, but proceeded anyway.
What Clues does This Fantasy Solution give you?
Thinking about the clues of my previous response, a viable solution hit me. In order to get motivated to write my paper, all I had to do was adopt the mindset of my theoretical zombie. His objective is to write the paper so he would stoically carry it out. Following his supposed frame of mind I was actually more motivated to write it myself.
This way of getting ideas actually worked much better than I predicted.