Future Work/Life is my newsletter in which I explore the changing relationship between work and our personal lives. Every week, I share something I’ve written, a few things I’ve enjoyed reading, and something great to listen to. If you find it interesting, please share it!
The Writing:
I've spent much of the past couple of months talking and writing about the power of sharing ideas to help grow your business and career.
Why?
Well, as I wrote last week, having a point of view will be critical both in the future of work and, more pressingly, in the short-term as people tighten their belts and you have to convince them that you're a 'must-have'.
But I keep banging the idea drum because far too few people do it.
There are always reasons, of course. A lack of time is top of the list, and everyone has plenty of other priorities. When I dig a bit deeper with people, though, the barrier to sharing ideas is often coming up with them in the first place.
So, today, I'm going to share a technique with you to generate 10 ideas in 10 minutes - easy!
It involves tapping into your unconscious. Here's how:
Grab a pen and paper
Set a timer for 10 minutes.
Look around. What's the first thing you spot?
Write it down, followed by anything related to it from your memory.
Allow yourself to jump from that memory to another and write it down.
Keep going, writing down whatever comes to mind, however random and without filtering.
Continue writing at all times, filling gaps by writing down colours, pet names or cars you've had.
When the timer goes off, put down your pen, even if you're mid-thought and step away for 10 mins.
When you return, highlight or circle any of the most interesting or amusing thoughts and ideas.
Writer and world-renowned storyteller, Matthew Dicks, calls this process 'dreaming from the end of your pen’ - you might know it as ‘free-writing’.
You can use it to harness those memories to help you put a unique spin on your insights and ideas. For example, I did this recently to find an anecdote to help explain the importance of stories to persuade and convince others of your point of view, uncovering an experience I had as a 10-year-old crying into my beans on toast in Tesco in Leighton Buzzard. Intrigued? You’ll have to wait to read about that one in my book, I’m afraid!
More relevantly, you’ll be amazed at the memories it evokes and the new combinations it stimulates, which can help inspire not just one idea but many in just 10 minutes.
How can you relate one of the thoughts you wrote down to a point you're trying to make in a post or an article?
Can a story from your past help illustrate a problem and solution in a new way?
Whether directly or indirectly, you'll find free-writing clarifies your thinking and taps into something genuinely unique - YOUR life experience.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week,
Ollie
For more tips and advice on developing a writing habit, listen to these podcast conversations:
Alison Jones - Writing For Business (And Pleasure)
Nicolas Cole - How to Become a Digital Writer
The Reading:
I’m interviewing two great guests for the podcast this week, so if you have any questions for either, feel free to reply to this and let me know.
The first is one of my favourite authors and podcasters, Tim Harford. You might know him as The Undercover Economist, the author of multiple bestsellers and the host of the Cautionary Tales podcast.
As he writes in his FT column this week, “Learning how to think well involves hearts as well as minds”. The main takeaway?
“Facts, logic, quantitative tools and analytical clarity are all very well, but the art of thinking well requires virtues as well as skills. And if we don’t know who will teach those virtues, or how to teach them, that explains a lot about the world in which we now live.”
I’ll be speaking to Justin Welsh later this week about how he pivoted his career from burned-out SaaS exec to one of the most prominent creators on LinkedIn (and now Twitter too). He writes about his experience to help other solopreneurs on their journey, and HERE’s a taste of what you can expect by following him and listening to our podcast chat.
While we’re on the subject of generating fresh ideas, this recent column in The Economist explains:
“Brainstorming conjures up a vision of hell, [but it] persists, and for decent reasons. Normal routines afford employees precious little time to think. Getting a group of people together is an opportunity to harness disparate viewpoints. Producing, filtering and selecting new ideas in an efficient way is an appealing proposition.”
But as the article explains, we’re still resistant to the idea for various reasons, including the tension between creativity and feasability. Most interestingly as we consider how to adapt to increasingly digital communications is the observation that:
“Brainstorming on Zoom comes at a cost to creativity: as people’s visual focus narrows on the screen in front of them, their cognitive range also seems to become more limited. But if in-person gatherings are better, they also do not work equally well for everyone. Some personalities are immediately comfortable saying what they think; others need to be coaxed to share their opinions.”
The Listening:
Sarah Stein Greenberg is Executive Director of Stanford University's Design School, known as 'the d.school'. On Christopher Lochhead’s podcast last year, she explained that when it comes to being creative and coming up with ideas, alongside the importance of action, there's also a need for a certain amount of inaction.
"I think reflection is kind of the underappreciated partner of action. In a lot of cases, when people think about creativity, they think about brainstorming and exuberance and that spark of inspiration. But…it's like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, those two things are inextricably linked: action and reflection."
She recommends a form of journaling to help inspire breakthroughs, using another framework created at the d.school, called 'What? / So What? / Now What?'
Here's how you might use it following a creative session:
What? Write down everything that happened before reflecting on what it means.
So what? Why is it important, and why did it feel like something you wanted to capture
Now what? What do you want to do about it? Is it something you can test, practice or improve upon?