Creativity is a muscle that you can build. The best way to build a muscle is regular disruption, this is why habits are so powerful. Daily ideas will pump it up.
Your ideas get better over time, but more importantly, your questions get better too.
Who is this for
Creativity is not limited to creatives, it’s a meta-skill like reading. You can use it in every context of your life. It’s open to you, if you try, learn and build. Most people only think in requirements, but you can reprogram your brain to deal differently with it. Problem solving is probably one of the most required skills you can train. And all you need is a question to answer.
So first question: why should you do it?
You could come up with ideas that…
- … brought you a dream day
- … will put a smile on the face of your beloved people
- … solves a heavy problem you have
- … gives you a new perspective on life
- … makes you financially independent
- … could become a business, that you are passioned about
- … will change every day of your future life.
What will happen
Based on my personal experience — I do this daily routine since 2019 — all I can say is, that it will change your life. Some days you will struggle to find 10 ideas, but just try. There will be tons of ideas — thousand of ideas each year — and a lot of them changed my life dramatically. Writing blog articles was just one of them.
Sometimes I only think how i can spend an amazing vacation with my family, little ideas to surprise them. I solved many of my problems on the way, with just thinking about them from time to time. Don’t force yourself to produce only top business ideas — yeah think crazy and challenge yourself — but then again: keep it simple and easy.
The routine itself does the magic. As you do this routine every day, you have every day again the chance to discover your next business, solve your acute problems and improve your quality of life. And that will happen once you give it the attention it deserves. It’s all about quantity.
After all, creativity is a muscle we build through repetition.
The decisions we make become better because we deal with questions, ideas and problems on a daily basis. So this is a holistic change that affects every area of our lives.
The habit
Get up and do your thing to be ready for the day
Take a coffee, shower or what is needed to wake you up.Write down 10 ideas.
Try to reach 10 daily ideas. Do your best, but don’t be too hard on yourself.Do this before you open your last chats or mail inbox.
This will keep your head free and open to a wider range of topics.Repeat…
10 tips to kick-start your daily idea sessions:
- Keep the questions and answers simple
- Aim for quantity instead of quality.
- If you can’t come up with 10 ideas. Write down 20.
- Write down bad ideas. For every 20 bad ideas, there will be also a good one.
- If you can’t come up with brilliant answers for your question, come up with bad answers.
- No judgement. There is not such a thing as “bad” ideas.
- Replace “bad” with “easy”. Replace “easy” with “simple”.
Sometimes the simple changes, are the most meaningful.
My personal evergreen list that I can always go back to:
- 10 sustainable competences that I could build
- 10 businesses that I would like to build
- 10 things that I could do to have a great day
- 10 things that I would love to do or learn, that I never tried or have not done for a long time
- 10 things I could do or change to improve my relationship with my family and friends
- 10 things that I could reduce or automate to have time for meaningful things
- 10 things that everybody agrees with, but I believe that are wrong
- 10 things I could do with my time, when I don’t have to work for a living
- 10 things I could do to build monthly investment income
- 10 situations I have suffered in life and what it was good for
- How would you spend your life if you knew it was the last year of your life?
How to structure your list:
- Problem/Topic
We often develop several ideas on one topic, so it makes sense to form a cluster. - Idea
This is where the magic happens. Give me 10 more. 🂺 - First step
What is the first step you can easily take to make your idea reality. - What’s the downside? And how do I protect against it?
The first question Richard Branson would ask, and he’s right. - Outcome
What have you actually done with it?
Tips for advanced
Use a spreadsheet or similar medium, because you’ll be producing a lot of content. So look for a format that is scalable.
Use a checklist, that you check things, when you really did them, this will give you a nice overview, how many ideas improved/influenced your life
Add categories that you can filter by. Imagine you wrote down 100 ideas in one year, all revolving around the same theme .This way, all ideas are accessible.
Note: Ive added for myself also the columns “System” and “Skill/Goal”. If you are interested why, you can find more details in my article: What is your routine? An experiment to discover your own habit systems
Links
My personal 10 ideas template
It’s a copy of what I use on daily base. Personally, I love flipping to a yearly list and re-reading the hundreds or thousands of ideas. Very often I pick something, that I’ve not yet done and just do it. Make it fun. Make it yours.THE ULTIMATE GUIDE FOR BECOMING AN IDEA MACHINE
Blog by James Altucher. Based on his tips, I’ve created my first initial list.Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris
A toolbox of wisdom, greatness and habits for every days life. In includes also a chapter of James Altucher.
Thank you for reading!