The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Brainstorming’

The act of writing things down helps to keep you focused, and on track in your life. Most times when you think of writing things down, you think of goals to keep them front, centered and solidified, or you jot down things that pop into your mind to keep you from forgetting them. But there are other reasons why you should write things down.

1. The great innovators and thinkers who changed the world documented their work, which others were able to build on
2. Documenting your life story is a great way for your family, your descendants to learn and understand who your are/were
3. Documenting and explaining the processes and models you develop to do your work more effectively and efficiently will encourage others to do the same. This is also a way for you to get deserved recognition for your contributions to cost cutting within the company
4. When an idea comes to you, if you write it down, you are less likely to forget it, and more likely to act on it
5. When you are trying to figure things out, writing it on paper makes it easier and helps you to make connections that you otherwise wouldn’t make
6. When reading, other than for entertainment, taking notes helps you to build your reservoir of knowledge, which will prove useful when brainstorming or looking for innovative solutions
7. Writing things down shows that you are accountable, and signals that you are serious

What do you have to add to the conversation? Why do you write things down? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

Below are some simple steps for brainstorming.

• Label a notebook “Ideas Book”
• Set aside 30 minutes three times each week
• At the top of the page in your “Ideas Book”, write the challenge or problem that you have
  to resolve
• Go into the Alpha state using the instructions below
• For 20 minutes, mass gather ideas on how to resolve the challenge
• When you’ve finished mass gathering ideas, read over each idea, considering each briefly
• You’ll see obvious faults with some of the ideas
• Rank each remaining idea on a scale of 1 to 5 and choose the best ideas
• Look at all of your best ideas to see if it’s logical to combine two or more to form a new idea
  that’s better
• Look at the ideas that you didn’t choose to see if you combined two or three of them if you
  could get an exceptional idea
• Implement your great ideas

Getting Into Alpha

1. Close you eyes
2. Take a few deep breaths, breathing deep into your lungs by flexing your diaphragm (you know
   that you are breathing deeply when your stomach pushes out when you are inhaling)
3. With your eyes still closed, look upwards at the point between your eyebrows
4. When you feel a slight pressure, start counting down slowly from ten to one. When you reach
   one, you are now in the alpha state

What are your favourite brainstorming techniques? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Google via Apture