Steps
By Peter LloydI accidentally discovered a new and innovative way to come up with creative ideas, and I'd like to share it with you.
You need a set of stairs, preferably carpeted, and two glasses of water. Drink one glass of water, wait 20 minutes to one half hour, and then lie down on the stairs, head down on your belly. Stay in this position for at least half an hour. During that period of time, all sorts of ideas will come to you. You might want to have a pencil and paper with you to jot them down. After one half hour, get back up and drink the other glass of water.
If you can't tell if I serious or not right now, please stay with me. I'm serious. I want to tell you how I discovered this amazing, idea-generation process.
By accident. I was instructed to follow the procedure I just described by a urologist as a follow-up to a kidney treatment. It so happens that I was working on a creative assignment, getting nowhere, when I decided to take a break and do my kidney thing.
The minute I got into position, I was overcome by a flood of ideas. So
many ideas that I completed the assignment in this head-over-heals position.
Am I suggesting that this water-on-the-stairs procedure caused the flow of ideas? No. Am I recommending that you try lying on the stairs? No. I just thought it was a colorful way to illustrate that one way to get ideas is to do something different, change your point of view, take a break, take a walk, clear the air, look at things in an entirely new way.
It's not the water, not the position, but the time away from focusing on your problem that spurs innovation. And like the best inventions, it always works!
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.