Mindstorming, sometimes called prospecting or the “20-idea method” sets the stage for letting your creative juices call forth suggestions for your writing as well as ways to improve your fortune and productivity. The process of mindstorming involves taking a question and then doing some personal “brainstorming” with your writing. This exercise is a great jogger of creativity why you find that you have run up against a wall with your writing.
Here’s how to do it:
- Formulate a question and write it at the top of a page
- Then, as fast as you can, write at least 20 to 25 answers.
While you write. Just write. Don’t think, judge, or edit. The more far out an answer that appears on your paper, the better.
After you stop writing, take a few minutes to review the answers that spilled onto your page. Some of the answers will guide you and others may even provoke an “Ah Ha!” realization. Often you will find the answers at the end of your list better than the first few.
Then there will be some days when the answers appear on the page but fail to turn up anything new. On these days when you strike out, just be patient. Set the question at hand aside for a few days. Then return to it and repeat the exercise.
On a personal note, I find that if I strike out too many times, the problem is not with finding the right answer but the right question. If you suspect that this might be what’s happening to you, try this. Take your question, XXX, that you were writing on the top of the page and then start with a new question at the top of the page: “What is a better way to ask XXX?” Then write to turn up 20 to 25 answers and reassess.
For productivity, consider this approach offered by career guru, Brian Tracey:
Begin by writing a particular goal or problem at the top of the page.
For example, if you want to increase your income by 50 percent over the next year, you would write something like, “What can I do to increase my income by 50 percent over the next 12 months?” Or, you can be even more specific by writing the exact amount. If you are earning $50,000 a year today, you would write: “What can I do to increase my income by $25,000 over the next 12 months?” The more specific the question is, the better the quality of answers will be. So don’t write, “What can I do to be happier over the next 12 months?” That kind of question is too fuzzy for your mind. Be specific, detailed, and focused in your questions and you will find practical, effective answers.
Once you have written the question, jot down 20 answers. Let your mind flow freely. Write down every answer that comes to you. Don’t worry about whether it is right or wrong, intelligent or foolish, possible or impossible. Just come up with at least 20 answers.
Whatever you write, keep writing until you have at least 20 answers. If you get stuck after writing the obvious answers, write about the opposite solutions. Don’t be afraid to be ridiculous. Very often, a ridiculous answer triggers a breakthrough thought that might save you years of hard work.
Next, go back over the answers and select the one that seems to be the most appropriate for you at this moment. You will often have an instinct or feeling about a particular answer. It appeals to you for some reason. This is an unconscious suggestion that you are on the right track.
Once you’ve selected the best option, here’s a way to double the creative impact of this exercise: Transfer the answer to the top of a new page and then write 20 ideas for implementing it in your life. You will be astonished at the outpouring of creative ideas that flow from your mind through your hand and onto the paper.
One of the great joys of engaging in an ongoing personal writing practice lies in getting to know yourself better. With pen and paper at hand, you begin to live an examined life. Mindstorming questions for living the examined life might include the following:
- What is your life about?
- What do you want your life to be about?
- What purpose do you want to guide your life?
- What do you want to happen in your workplace?
- What do you want to happen in your career?
- What do you want to happen in your relationships?
- What do you want to happen in your spiritual life?
When using mindstorming to improve your health and well-being, consider these questions:
- What is the one healthy thing I do that helps me best cope with my chronic pain?
- What can I do to make the most out of the available energy I have while undergoing chemotherapy?
- What changes in my life can I make to honor the passing of my loved one?
- How can I take more charge of my own health?
- What’s the number one thing I can do that will most help me with my weight, sleeping problems, etc?
Once you begin to use mindstorming and achieve some success with it, you will find yourself turning to it more and more.
Happy writing.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Jurgen Wolff // Mar 30, 2008 at 2:19 am
A way to supercharge this technique is to combine it with mind-mapping. Instead of just writing down the answers, put them on mind map and let other ideas branch out from them–often it results in two or three times as many ideas as just listing.
2 Ellen Taliaferro, MD // Mar 30, 2008 at 6:14 am
Thanks, Jurgen. Excellent idea.
For more information on mindmapping, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
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