It’s always nice to have a good idea, but good ideas aren’t always easy to find. They’re often seen as something mystical, not reducible to a simple process but something that we wait and hope will burst up from the back of our mind.
This might be true to an extent. We certainly have insights when we least expect them, often when we’re engaged in another activity.
While this type of creative insight is easier to have, they are less predictable. For people who rely on creative ideas often — such as writers, designers, and engineers — sitting back and waiting for this type of creativity isn’t feasible.
When we cannot wait for inspiration to strike us, we have to go looking for it. We have to turn to the more forceful approach of brainstorming and ideating.
To be successful in this pursuit, persistence is key, but commonly undervalued. One problem is that, like the strike of insight, we expect ideas to be easy. When it’s not easy, we confuse the difficulty for the quality of ideas.
Quality vs Quantity
When brainstorming ideas, we tend to call the search off before we’ve had the best of them.
A 1961 study found that better ideas appeared in the later stages of an ideation process than the earlier stages. The more…
