Idea Machine!

I like James Altucher’s blog a bunch, he writes about all kinds of random stuff and it is generally thought provoking and often-times inspiring. In the interest of flexing my brain, I gravitated to one of his posts entitled ‘FAQ on HOW TO BECOME AN IDEA MACHINE.‘

I have a little black book that I carry around in my bike bag, and jot down ideas when inspiration hits. Sometimes they are web design or logo design ideas, more often, not. Usually, when I drag out the book and get started, the 2nd and 3rd iteration of an idea are quick to follow. Usually, those are ideas I throw out as the expected solution to a problem, and it isn’t until a few minutes of focus have settled in that I start to get somewhere. Here’s the result of a morning when I was dreaming of building a custom ‘flight-deck’ for my Xtracycle:

Anyway, back to Altucher: The purpose of the blog was to encourage you (me) to become an IDEA MACHINE. Take a few minutes each day to write down 10 ideas about anything. As he predicts, 99.9% of those ideas are going to suck, but the point of the exercise is to improve at thinking on your feet and quickly rattling off thoughts that might inspire you to think about them some more. The good ones will stick, and you won’t have to go back and look at old lists because you won’t be able to stop thinking about your cool new idea.

Try it, it’s fun.