It’s a Crisis When My Idea Machine Grinds to a Halt

Like many of you, ideas are my stock in trade. Whether writing the next article, designing a new workshop or course, providing strategy advisory services for a client, or supporting my coaching clients, I have to operate with a well-oiled idea machine. When the idea machine grinds to a halt, I’m in trouble and need to find a fun, engaging, practical approach to restarting it.

I occasionally spend time in the land of low creativity and have developed some techniques to reboot and restart the idea machine. Use these as literal thought-starters when you encounter this situation. The list is less than exhaustive, and I would love to hear your ideas.

14 Hacks I Use to Help Restart My Idea Machine

1. Push Away from the Screen

For me, the devices become a crutch, sucking me into unproductive searching and offering mental chewing gum that warps and wastes time. I know the default move is to go to ChatGPT. More on that later. For now, push away.

2. Get Up and Move

We all know that movement is life, yet our chairs (and screens) exert a gravitational pull that our brains fight to overcome. Walk. Run. Lift. Wander. Hit a local library or bookstore. Wander through a museum or art gallery. I work out to recharge daily. Weightlifting offers an unbelievable recharge for me, and my Peloton App is my new best friend. (Hey, personal comment only, I’m a fan of some of the incredible instructors and how they propel us through tough workouts.)

3. Do Something Completely Different

Living on a multi-acre wooded/lake property, there’s endless work to do outdoors. Beyond this obvious opportunity to escape into nature and labor, I love spending time with hobbies, building things, fixing or tuning up motors, and washing and waxing my vehicles. Some of my best ideas pop-up out of nowhere when I’m immersed in this work.

4. Learn to Make Music

I have zero musical talent but a fascination with learning to play. I’m dangerous on a piano with much of the Great American Songbook and taking guitar lessons right now. Boy, do I stink, but I leave the lessons and practice sessions mentally relaxed and creatively energized.

5. Listen to Music

Music transports us, and the right music penetrates deep into our minds and souls. Find something you find relaxing or motivating and just soak it up. Depending upon the day part, I range from Mozart and Led Zeppelin to pianist Oscar Peterson, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson or Dua Lipa and Halsey, and just about every genre you can think of.

6. Take a Power Nap

For me, a 10-12 minute nap offers a jolt of energy and clarity that’s hard to replicate, and this brief recharge doesn’t interfere with my regular sleep pattern. I used to feel guilty about napping in the middle of the day. Not anymore. It propels my work.

7. Read Anything

Find something fun for you and let yourself disappear into it. I don’t care if it’s the back of a cereal box. When I’m looking to disappear for a while, I revert to some earlier-life favorites or modern mysteries and police procedurals.

8. Read and Think Deeply

Read something challenging and pause to jot down ideas or questions as you work your way through it. I recently recommended Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning to a client who was stuck and he came out of it charged with a fresh sense of purpose and ideas to bring purpose to life. Whatever makes you pause and ponder is good. Jotting down notes and thoughts is essential!

9. Learn Something

The availability of e-courses and talks on just about every topic offers you an immediate opportunity to fire up your learning. While this violates my “push away from the screen” perspective above, I make an exception for education. Better yet, go learn something live. Paint a picture. Learn to throw a pot (the right phrase?). Learn to plan your next garden. Just learn something. My go-to recently has been learning about options trading. It’s fascinating, a bit brain-bending, and something I hope to use for good at some point.

10. Build an Idea Wall of Sticky Notes

I love this one because it is visual and friendly to my walls and because I hate painting. Frame your question and go wild, listing and posting one idea per note. Challenge yourself for quantity, and don’t filter your ideas. Come back to the wall regularly, stare at the ideas, jump and build on earlier thoughts and add notes. Start looking for themes. Reorder the notes. Keep jumping, building, and adding. Ask for help to add to the ideas.

11. Identify and Challenge Your Assumptions

A valued colleague and friend reminded me today that we must regularly examine our assumptions. It’s easy for them to be absorbed into our thinking, yet as conditions change and time progresses, we’re in danger of harboring obsolete assumptions. Ask for help with this exercise. I’m in the process of challenging my assumptions about developing e-courses and writing books. My tendency is to do large projects. The world wants bite-sized opportunities to consume ideas. This is challenging me to think hard about long ingrained ideas.

12. Renew Dormant Relationships

Not all relationships are worth renewing, but the ones where time has just slipped by and you’ve lost track of each other can be rich idea-sharing experiences. It might feel awkward, and sometimes it is, but most often, it’s personally gratifying for all parties. Make sure to focus on them, their stories, and their experiences. Ask a lot of questions and listen fiercely.

13. Go Somewhere and Immerse Yourself in the Culture

Any opportunity you can find to get out of your environment and immerse yourself in a different culture offers tremendous potential for learning and idea generation. If you can’t travel, sample the cuisine from a different culture. Study the culture ahead of time. Learn about the food, its preparation, and its significance in the culture. I use this as an approach in my global management courses, and the students love it.

14. And Then Maybe, Try ChatGPT

I left this one last for a reason. It will quickly become the crutch, and while there is some creativity in developing the proper queries, it doesn’t offer the same human recharge potential as all of the ideas above. It’s a good tool. Work hard on the queries.

The Bottom Line for Now:

Getting unstuck and recharging and rebooting your personal idea machine is challenging. I hope those ideas prompt some fresh approaches for you. If you’ve got a great approach, we’ll all appreciate leaving a note here on your secret to restarting your idea machine.

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