Creating ideas is different for everyone, for some people its hard to do, for others very easy. For me I can create ideas fairly easily, but its often the place that makes the difference. The place I seem to be able to easily create ideas is on a plane or train. Its something about the constant movement or being in one place for a extended period of time but with a large amount of people that rarely engage. Its like there is an energy of the all the people in that space but no engagement. Its a hard thing to pin down. I also like cafes but steer more towards the independent places that are off the beaten track, in Shanghai that means away from main streets and expat hangouts.
Creating ideas is easy to do, all it takes is a pen and paper and just think about one problem at a time or the other way is I listen to podcasts that stimulate ideas and then I take them on a tangent. I like to visually draw out ideas whether its a flow chart, doodle or a central idea with many branches.
Creating ideas is one thing but then at the end you have to stare at the page and ask yourself – ‘where to go from here?’ do you bin it or go with it. Going for it with ideas is hard and binning it is easy – but the reward you will get with continuing will outweigh the full bin every time.