What if I told you the most effective way to come up with one idea is to quickly come up with many ideas? Would you temporarily hang up your disbelief and give it a try? If you're ready now and need no further explanation, I encourage you to go straight to this exercise and come back when you're done.
Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking is a thinking strategy and method for generating creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. Basically, instead of seeking out that singular ideal topic, you open up to any possible idea - good or bad - and give yourself a time limit to list out all the possiblities you can imagine.When time runs out, you should have a nice long list of options. Some will be bad. Really bad. It's okay. Hopefully, you'll have at least one idea you'd like to explore. If you don't, you can take a quick break and try it again.But what do you do with all those ideas? Isn't that information overload? Won't having a long list of ideas somehow flood the system? What do you do with it all?
Convergent Thinking
Once you have your list, it's time to do some housework. Remember how you were supposed to list all your ideas, both good and bad? Here's how to go through that list.
Circle or highlight your best ideas
Scratch out or delete the ideas that aren't going to work. Let them go.
Make connections between related ideas. Have two similar ideas? Try to rephrase your thought by combining the two.
Elaborate on your best ideas. I like to immediately make a list of thoughts below each of my best ideas. Sometimes, I do this with another timed exercise. Other times, my mind is already flowing freely at this point and making new lists comes naturally.
