An idea is the connection of two seemingly unrelated things.
If you think back to the last great idea you had, then spent a little bit of time working out HOW you got it you’ll find that you had a particular challenge floating around in your head. As you went about your business, tasting things, touching, hearing, smelling, watching things … you were exposing yourself to brand new experiences. One of those new experiences sparked your thinking and gave you an idea to solve that challenge.
So the best way to get fresh ideas is to continually find ways to experience new things!
Choose just 3 of these suggestions : complete them within 7 days and you’ll get a fresh idea to solve any challenge you’re working on…
Eat something that you’ve never tried before. Ask the people around your desk or over email: “Where was the last place you went out for dinner?” When you hear of a restaurant that’s not your normal choice, make a plan to go there (ask that person out with you!)
..- Change the radio station or iPod genre for one whole day, two if you’re brave
.. 
Next time you’re at the newsagent, especially at the airport (because you’re about to be trapped with your new purchase for a couple of hours in the air), choose a magazine that’s totally opposite to the one you normally get. If you go for OK Mag, choose V8 SuperCars. If you go for House and Garden, choose Time Mag
..- Find a type of live event you’ve never been to and go. By yourself if you have to. If you’ve never been to a kids movie, borrow a kid and go. If you’ve never been to the ballet, borrow an adult and go
.. - Try implementing a NUDE FOOD Day at work – set a date and ask everyone to join in. The idea is to create as little rubbish as possible for that day. No packaging, wrapping, non recyclable waste allowed!
.. 
Go to www.ted.com and click on the 4th video you see. Watch it even if it isn’t your area of interest. You WILL learn something
..- Ask a buddy to bring in a book for you to read – something they enjoyed but that they don’t think you’d automatically choose for yourself. Commit to read at least half of it within 7 days and finish it within 14
.. 
Set aside a time to go out for lunch within 7 days. The catch is: If you’re sitting in a multi story building, ask the person who sits directly above or below you on a different floor to come to lunch with you. If you work alone or in a small team, ask someone over email who you haven’t lunched with in over a year (or at all, preferably!). As your lunch partner to bring one business challenge with them and you’ll bring yours – you’ll give each other ‘fresh eyes’ on the problem
..- Whatever your usual exercise routine is, do it in reverse. Walk around the block in the opposite direction. Start your gym routine with what you normally finish with. If you don’t exercise, simply commit to going for a 30 min walk around your area
.. 
When someone in a shop asks “How are you?” reply with “Great thank you.. and you?” and actually listen for their answer – engage them in at least another sentence before going back onto auto pilot! (”Good weekend?”, “Got much planned for the weekend?”, “Been busy today?”, “What’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to you today?”)
Let us know how you get on. Remember, only 3 of these 10 suggestions are needed in order to give you all the ammo you need to get a fresh idea. This blog is relatively new and I’m keen to know what works for you. If you’ve got a comment to make, please do go ahead and make it – I don’t know how many of you there are out there!
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Thanks, Yvonne.
This is an excellent list with some refreshing thinking. It’s so easy to get stuck in routine habits. No wonder the same old thoughts swirl around the brain day after day.
Being a sociable guy, I especially like number 8.
Best, Robin
Hi Yvonne,
Thanks for sharing.
In my experience not many people take these kind of ‘exercises’ very serious. Well, most people don’t take them serious at all, period. They are dead wrong. There is much more to these little, seemingly irrelevant activities than meets the eye.
For starters, there’s Koestler’s concept of bisociation, which invites you to be open for ‘light bulb moments’ handed to you from a frame of reference that, at first sight, has little or nothing to do with the problem you are working on.
One might think something along the lines of, ‘what does NUDE food have to do with my efforts to improve customer loyalty anyway?!’. Well, same as walking your dog has anything to do with making a new zipper, I guess, which is nothing-although Swiss engineer George de Mestral would disagree with you as his observation of seeds of burdock sticking to his dogs fur made him come up with Velcro. And that’s just naming one incident where ‘luck’ favoured a prepared mind.
And then there’s incubation. Just ask anyone where and when people get their best ideas. 99% will give you an answer that fits into one the next three categories: 1) while finding yourself in a dream state, 2) during a physical activity, 3) in the bathroom. Else said, during those times and places you’re working on the problem, without actually really working on it. Why not make use of that phenomenon and provoke a little incubation over I-’ve-never-ordered-this-before lunch?
And then there’s our so-called good old Random Stimulation, on which Dr. Edward De Bono did a lot of work. The idea is that a completely randomized stimulus often provokes a thought this lies well beyond our normal lines of thinking. And although an activity picked from, let’s say, Yvonne’s list, is not a random stimulus pur sang, using the second article that has only black and white photo’s in that magazine you would normally never read to solve your problem, is.
None of these things seem to be logical, but they absolutely are. You see, you cannot consciously leave your thinking patterns. That’s simply not possible. That’s like asking you not to think of pink elephants-good luck with that! And so every now and then we need a little nudge pushing us of the trail into undiscovered territory. Still in doubt, then consider this: If your normal, everyday kind of thinking would be sufficient to solve your puzzle-then why isn’t it finished yet?
The real problem is often ego. You’d rather have your Harvard degree help you to come up with an idea than a limbo dance during a bachelor party, right? But ideas don’t have ego’s, people do. Ideas couldn’t care less about the time or place of their emergence. They pop up whenever it pleases them. In fact, I’m beginning to believe that they just love to hide in the dark so they can jump at you at the most inconvenient moment.
I think your list might just have provided us with 10 of those moments, which is as good a place to start as any!
Take care,
Karl
Thanks for stopping by Robin… great to meet you! Let me know how you get on taking a strange out for lunch, ok? Hope to see you here again.. Y
Karl.. you’re so generous with your expansion of my thoughts! Thanks for taking the time to write such a wonderful reply… Loved the dog/zipper association. I hadn’t heard of that before. You’re a gem. Y
I realized that I am doing a few of these suggestions already. I always ask the cashier how they are. Janitors too. I am also doing #4 this month. Going to a local TED talks and dinner after…. even if I have to go by myself.
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This is a fantastic post Yvonne, no wonder it is your most successful.
My favourite of your tips is number 8 and the idea of going to lunch with somebody you wouldn’t normally.
An addition I will add to the list is:
Take a picture every day even if it is on your phone. It makes you look at the world in a different way and makes you analyse things constantly.
Reminds me that I need to take more photos.