The Four Steps to Find Your Next Idea
There’s a cycle in creativity. At first you find your idea amazing.
Then, as you try to materialise it (aka create), you go through the infinity loop of ups and downs that often feels like this:
If you’re diligent enough, puting one foot in front of another, you’ll eventually reach a point where you’re done. Depending on the size of your project, and your original skills, it can take hours, days, weeks, months, or years for you to be done.
Done doesn’t mean you’re in love with the result though, it means you’ve materialised your idea to the best of your possibilities at this given time.
And what usually happens is that the result is somehow similar to the idea, and somehow different.
Similar because you can see the roots of where it all came from. Different because while trying to materialise it, new inputs came and made you tweak this or that. That’s what we call: the process.
During the process, magic happens: you find new seeds of ideas. Details, feelings, intuitions usually pile up on the side while you’re trying to materialise this first idea.
And that’s going to be your pool of data to go back to, to find your next idea.
But you need to go back to it.
You need to go back to this box of possible ideas, and see which one were entertaining distractions, or details to integrate in future projects, and which one have the potential to become your next big idea.
And don’t think you’ll remember. We don’t. No matter how brilliant the idea you got while working on your current project is, you will forget about it. You need to leave a trace you can go back to when you’re on the hunt for your next project.
The four steps to find your next ideas :
1- WORK to materialise your current idea as well and as long as you can until putting the word “DONE” on it.
2- COLLECT all the unexpected side-ideas that pop-up in your head during the process of materialising your first idea.
3- REVIEW what you’ve collected once you’re mind is clear again and you’re on the hunt for a new idea.
4- PICK what will be your next project.
Voila. Once you’ve done that, it will probably be time to get back on the Infinity Loop horse.
With this cycle, you’ll never run out of ideas. It’s not create to create. It’s be proactive while creating.
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Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.
