Coming up with Ideas: 5 step approach

The author from Medium borrows this from Gary Larson of Far Side

Here’s the simple five-step formula:

1. Gather material (specific and general)
2. Think (write down every idea)
3. Take a break (put the problem out of your mind)
4. Let idea emerge (idea appears, write it down)
5. Development (refine and rework idea)
6.  

• this is from "Where Good Ideas Come From" by Steven Johnson
• Go for a walk
• Cultivate hunches
• Write everything down, but keep your folders messy
• Embrace serendipity by following links
• Make generative mistakes
• Take on multiple hobbies
• Frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks
• Let others build on your ideas
• Borrow, recycle, reinvent
• Build a tangled bank (collaborate)

All of these are in service of his big idea: “The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.”

Requests to the Unconscious and Thought Dumping

https://medium.com/better-humans/this-10-minute-routine-will-increase-your-clarity-and-creativity-336cb82e3797

This 10-Minute Routine Will Increase Your Clarity And Creativity

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Aug 16, 2017 · 3 min read

“Your subconscious mind works continuously, while you are awake, and while you sleep.” — Napoleon Hill

Your subconscious never rests and is always on duty because it controls your heartbeat, blood circulation, and digestion. It controls all the vital processes and functions of your body and knows the answers to all your problems.

What happens on your subconscious level influences what happens on your conscious level. In other words, what goes on internally, even unconsciously, eventually becomes your reality. As Hill further states, “The subconscious mind will translate into its physical equivalent, by the most direct and practical method available.”

Consequently, your goal is to direct your subconscious mind to create the outcomes you seek. Additionally, you want to tap into your subconscious mind to unlock connections and solutions to your problems and projects.

Here’s a simple routine to get started:

Ten minutes before going to sleep:

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” — Thomas Edison

It’s common practice for many of the world’s most successful people to intentionally direct the workings of their subconscious mind while they’re sleeping.

How?

Take a few moments before you go to bed to meditate on and write down the things you’re trying to accomplish.

Ask yourself loads of questions related to that thing. In Edison’s words, make some “requests.” Write those questions and thoughts down on paper. The more specific the questions, the more clear will be your answers.

While you’re sleeping, your subconscious mind will get to work on those things.

Ten minutes after waking up:

Research confirms the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, is most active and readily creative immediately following sleep. Your subconscious mind has been loosely mind-wandering while you slept, making contextual and temporal connections. Creativity, after all, is making connections between different parts of the brain.

In a recent interview with Tim Ferriss, Josh Waitzkin, former chess prodigy and tai chi world champion, explains his morning routine to tap into the subconscious breakthroughs and connections experienced while he was sleeping.

Unlike 80 percent of people between the ages of 18–44 who check their smartphones within 15 minutes of waking up, Waitzkin goes to a quiet place, does some meditation and grabs his journal.

In his journal, he thought-dumps for several minutes. Thus, rather than focusing on input like most people who check their notifications, Waitzkin’s focus is on output. This is how he taps into his higher realms of clarity, learning, and creativity — what he calls, “crystallized intelligence.”

If you’re not an experienced journal writer, the idea of “thought-dumping” may be hard to implement. In my experience, it’s good to loosely direct your thought-dumping toward your goals.

Consider the “requests” you made of your subconscious just before going to bed. You asked yourself loads of questions. You thought about and wrote down the things you’re trying to accomplish.

Now, first thing in the morning, when your creative brain is most attuned, after its subconscious workout while you slept, start writing down whatever comes to mind about those things.

I often get ideas for articles I’m going to write while doing these thought-dumps. I get ideas about how I can be a better husband and father to my three foster children. I get clarity about the goals I believe I should be pursuing. I get insights about people I need to connect with, or how I can improve my current relationships.

To be sure, you’ll need to practice this skill. It may take several attempts before you become proficient. But with consistency, you can become fluent and automatic at achieving creative and intuitive bursts.

Conclusion:

“A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.” — James Allen

8 Traits to Foster Your Creativity from Ogilvie and Mather

Inspiring blog post from Farnham Street.
The full title of the book is

Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness Being Very Good Is No Good,You Have to Be Very, Very, Very, Very, Very Good

It costs $270 on Amazon 

Click through to see the 8 traits.  

 

 

 

 

How to read academic content once and remember it forever

Good article on how to make "consuming" material you're trying to learn (i.e. reading, watching or listening) active.  How to interact with the material, making the concepts yours and figuring out ways to fit them into a framework.  He also is a fan of spaced retrieval practice.  This comes up over and over again in the "learning how to learn" teachings. He has developed his own tech version of flash cards.

If She Knew

An entertainment book.  Give it a 3 1/2 stars.
"55 year old empty nester—and freshly retired FBI agent—Kate Wise finds herself drawn out of her quiet suburban life when her friend’s daughter is murdered in a home invasion—and she is implored to help.

Kate thought she left the FBI behind after 30 years as their top agent, respected for her brilliant mind, tough street skills and her uncanny ability to hunt down serial killers. Yet Kate, bored with the quiet town, at a crossroads in life, is summoned by a friend she can’t turn down.

As Kate hunts the killer, she soon finds herself at the forefront of a manhunt, as more bodies turn up—all suburban moms in perfect marriages—and it becomes apparent there is a serial killer stalking this quiet town. She unearths secrets from her neighbors she wishes she never knew, discovering that all is not what it seems in this picture of model streets and neighbors. Affairs and lying are rampant, and Kate must sift through the town’s underbelly if she will stop the killer from striking again.

But this killer is one step ahead of her, and it may end up being Kate who is in danger."

A guide to the Good Life: the ancient art of stoic joy

I've had this book for 10 years, and read it when I first bought it.  But it has come up a few times on various podcasts, so I took a look at it again.
Some of the strategies for Stoic living

• Negative Visualization this helps us to want what we already have and not take anything for granted
• spend time imagining things you have.  Your health, family, eyesight etc... 
• think about how much you would miss your eyesight, or ability to walk if they were gon
• pay attention to misfortunes that happen to other people and think about if they happened to you
• keep firmly in mind that everything we value will be lost to us eventually

• remember there will always be a final occurrence of everything we 

• Dichotomy of Control 
• only focus on your internal goals
• some things are out of our control (whether it rains)
• some things are partially in our control (how well we try at tennis)
• some things are in out control  our internal goals

• Fates
• learn to adapt ourselves to the environment in which fate has places us
• A "good man" will welcome "every experience the looms of fate may weave for him"

•  Epictetus says admiration of other people is a negative barometer of our progress as Stoics.  To be immune to insults also.
• Blame ourselves, not others, when our desires are thwarted.  We find we have fewer desires.

Mental Check list

1. Do we engage in negative visualization?
2. Are we careful to internalize goals? (meaning, how many pages you write a day, not whether others like it, etc..
3. Have we refrained from dwelling in the past?
4. Do we distinguish between things we have complete control over and no control or partial?
5. Do we practice the art of self denial? (This is where you purposely do without so you see that the worst may not be so awful.)
6. Daily meditations on our actions of the day and how skillful they were