#17: Are You Using the Most Underrated Yet Powerful Idea Generator?
Do you listen to podcasts on your morning jogs?
Do you read blogs and books while waiting in line?
Do you watch online courses and webinars as you devour your dinner?
Do you play audiobooks in the background when you're washing the dishes, taking a shower, or sweeping and getting rid of the dust bunnies under your bed?
If you said YES more than once, like me, you probably try to consume content at every chance you get. You fill up your time with learning activities, always on the hunt for new ideas and diving into rabbit holes. You pride yourself in your unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
But you have a problem.
Despite actively consuming voluminous amount of content, you still...
- Struggle to write every day because you don't have anything interesting to share
- Find it hard to say something fresh on your podcast
- Miss your weekly newsletter publication because you've run out of topics to talk about
- Post Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube videos only when inspiration strikes
The quality of input affects the quality of output, right?
But why do you struggle with coming up with ideas despite the quality and volume of your input?
Maybe you're not using the most powerful idea generator:
Your brain.
Before you roll your eyes and leave this page in rage, hear me out. ✌🏻
"Active consumption can easily become a procrastination technique to avoid creation.” — Category Pirates, Snow Leopard
When you bombard the mind with tons of data, you trick yourself into thinking you're productive. After all, you're learning a lot about things you might use later!
The problem is staying stuck in consumption mode. The input accumulates, but there's no output to show for it.
The antidote to this?
Let your mind breathe
Do nothing, take some time off to recharge, and give your brain a break.
Let your thoughts simmer in silence till you cook up surprising ideas. Tune in to your inner world—you might discover hidden gems of insight.
Source: Digital Marketing Institute
Usually, active consumption supplies you with data and information.
But to turn information into valuable knowledge and wisdom, you have to give your mind the space to make non-obvious connections and strengthen associative thinking.
In James Webb Young's five-step process for producing ideas, gathering of materials (active consumption) and making sense of them are the first two steps.
This is followed by the third step: unconscious processing.
Let go of the material, think about or do something else, until the fourth step where the A-HA moment visits you. The last step of the creative process is to refine the idea till it's ready to be released out into the world.
Each step of this process is crucial—even the third one, which we so often ignore.
Let your mind work
Most of us have hoarded writing formulas, frameworks, and systems for generating ideas. We get caught up in setting up the perfect Second Brain (nothing wrong with this—I geek out about PKM too).
These can be useful—they help us get past staring at a blank page to actually creating. We create faster and produce more.
The problem is when we depend too much on these tools and techniques that we no longer exercise our minds.
We forget how powerful our minds are!
According to a Princeton article, "Studies have shown the brain has higher computational power efficiency than electronic computers by orders of magnitude. This has led to efforts to attempt to design computer architectures to better emulate the brain."
Do you listen to podcasts on your morning jogs?
Do you read blogs and books while waiting in line?
Do you watch online courses and webinars as you devour your dinner?
Do you play audiobooks in the background when you're washing the dishes, taking a shower, or sweeping and getting rid of the dust bunnies under your bed?
Do yourself a favor.
Let your mind breathe, and let your mind work.
Use the most powerful idea generator!
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Hi, and thanks for reading! I'm Kishly, a cheerleader of creatives and copywriter turned marketing strategist. Bookmark this blog to read my daily atomic essays on marketing, compassionate productivity, creative living, and lifelong learning. Or subscribe to Process, my weekly-ish newsletter for young adults (and the young at heart) in pursuit of wisdom and wonder. ✨