Unlocking Creativity
How Free Thinking and Innovative Content Structures Enhance Idea Generation
Introduction
What's an idea? Is it simply a worthless cognitive process? Can ideas have value on their own? Is it even worth bothering with idea generation if it's not immediately backed up with action? We're going to find this out together! Since I was a wee lad, my brain's been a place of thinking—as opposed to all those other non-thinking brains out there. I was able to make connections that others couldn't. The trouble was I didn't fully realise this until much later in life. Furthermore, it was only very recently that I had a big enough epiphany to push me into action, to burst through self-doubt, and to stop worrying about what other people think and simply embrace this gift for what it is.
Embracing My Creative Playground
My Substack, Thirteenth Strike, is an experimental creative playground for me right now. I'm trying many different things until I land on the best fit for me creatively and generate value for all you fine folk who wait with bated breath for the next piece of writing, video, or whatever other content I produce.
When I was growing up, and even more recently, I would get weird looks from people and various comments after I mentioned an idea or a fresh and/or novel way of looking at a problem or situation. This, likely coupled with other things, led me down a path of self-doubt. I worried too much about what people thought to the point of self-silencing and a perpetual cycle of suppressing and ignoring something innate within my very being.
After a time, I began writing some of these ideas down, though many were stored in a very disorganised way and have been lost. I've deleted many ideas, and my process has been haphazard. I've tried different approaches to clear these niggling thoughts from my brain. The thought pattern that has persisted the most is that all my ideas are useless unless I act on them. I have acted on some of my ideas. I have tried and failed at many things, and I have succeeded in some. I came to the realisation it's simply not possible to act in-depth on every idea that flits into my brain. It boils down to the fact that the time commitment for each of my ideas, coupled with the frequency ideas come to me, makes it completely infeasible.
At the time when I came to this realisation, I was trying to declutter my life physically as well as mentally—they are linked. Physically, I was decluttering my life by getting rid of things I didn't use anymore or hadn't used in a long time. Once most of this clutter was sorted, I felt my cognitive load lessening—it was good for my soul. I no longer had these items taking up space in my brain. Simultaneously, I was reducing the number of "projects" I was trying to take on. These projects were the result of ideas I wanted so badly to exist. I was becoming more and more conscious of the fact this was not sustainable. It was a mental toll I was unnecessarily burdening myself with.
The Link Between Physical and Mental Decluttering
I resigned myself to primarily noting these ideas—whether through writing them down or recording myself ramble, this was how it had to be. I restricted myself to one big "project." This one big project was to be something I allowed myself to work on outside my other commitments. My current "one big project" is Substack. This, I believe, is the longest "one big project" I have managed to stick to. November 23rd, 2023, until now. More than 9 months. I have been (for the most part) consistently working on my Substack. If you knew me personally, you'd recognise what an achievement this is.
Balancing Creativity and Practicality
While Substack has been a great place for me to write about things that interest me and share all this with all of you—I still come up with many ideas. Ideas that are disconnected from the things I was compelled to write about on Substack.
I still had this itch I couldn't scratch. I've come up with ideas to help on my Substack journey. Two of which I have implemented and one I will try to use with this post.
I'll likely write about those in the future. I feel as though my cognitive dissonance about my ideas was so strong that a lot of the time they don't even register as fully-fledged ideas in my brain. For instance, the two ideas that I implemented for Substack didn't even occur to me as legitimate ideas until I was writing this now.
Not Restricted by Reality: The Power of Free-Thinking
What exactly am I talking about when I'm referring to “ideas”? Such an ambiguous term. For me, without resorting to a boring dictionary definition, this is how I see the concept of an idea:
Thinking up something that doesn't exist yet—whether it be something completely "new," or a restructuring or combination of already existing things.
Something that improves a thing by solving a particular pain point people have.
Not restricted by reality (at first).
This last point is particularly important for me and I'll explain what I mean next.
In order to come up with your best ideas, your mind should be free from unnecessary constraints. Your mind should be free. Creativity thrives when your mind is free to roam. If you want to truly innovate, you've got to be willing to think beyond the blinders of our current reality and then scale back as needed. You should be able to explore possibilities that on their face seem outlandish or absurdly impractical. Allow your mind to wander freely and then apply all the necessary filters like logic and practicality.
We should be living in this moment like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. Sitting at a table together with empty plates, bowls, and cups. The only way they're able to eat is to use their imagination, free from all the constraints we have in this world. Not only are they able to conjure up food and drinks for themselves, but they all end up forming a collective consciousness—they're able to see and interact with everything each other has imagined.
Think about if you want to come up with some technological innovation—if you start by filling your brain with what's not possible, you're already putting yourself at a mental disadvantage. You're limiting yourself with a negative mindset from the beginning.
Publishing Ideas: A New Experiment
I think all ideas have value, some more than others, some will be worth pursuing, whereas others not so much. Perhaps your ideas don't have too much value to you right now for various reasons. That doesn't mean your ideas won't have value to someone else. This is why I'm going to start publishing ideas that I come up with. Some will be rubbish, some will not be well understood—there will likely be many critics. I don't care. I'll come up with ideas that already exist. I'm not going to check whether they exist or not before I post.
Ideas don't have to be 100% original to be considered innovative or have value. They could be as simple as combining two things that hadn't previously been thought of together. Connecting dots.
Introducing Ideas Lab
Let's break the proverbial ice for Ideas Lab with a recent idea. Funnily enough, I had this idea while reading, ‘Change by Design’, by Tim Brown. Tim talks about his editor, Ben Loehnen, who stated, “a proper book needs a proper Table of Contents.” Tim introduces a mind map at the beginning of the book as an alternative way of visualising the contents of the book. He also includes a Table of Contents. I think Tim was onto something with the mind map approach. Oftentimes when I'm reading through a book, I think about how many aspects within the book connect to one another. As mentioned, we've got the Table of Contents, as well as the indexes, glossaries, appendices, and so on. However, for visual people, this may be difficult to transform into a mental image. There are details that could no doubt be worked out, so in this, I'll just try to stick to the core idea as much as possible.
What?
Creating a hybrid Table of Contents that includes a visual mind map, where each node links to the relevant section of the content.
Why?
This approach can help people better visualise the content hierarchy, improving comprehension and retention of high-level information. It can also enhance navigation and organisation, making it easier for visual learners to understand the structure of the material.
How?
The implementation details can be refined over time, but the core concept involves integrating clickable mind map nodes with traditional content listings, offering a dual navigation system.
Conclusion
This is just the beginning of my journey into sharing ideas openly. Some ideas might be simple, others complex, but each holds the potential to contribute to a broader conversation about creativity and innovation. I invite you to join me in this exploration and see where our collective imagination can take us.
Thanks for slogging your way through this article via the reading method! If you enjoyed this piece or have thoughts to share, please leave a comment or reach out. Your feedback is invaluable as I continue to refine and experiment with new content. Stay tuned for more ideas and innovations on Thirteenth Strike.
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That's it for now, as always, good luck, stay safe and be well.