Why You Should Try like Hell to Have Awful Ideas

Most of us are familiar with some form of the following maxim:

In order to have a good idea, you’ll probably need to have an awful lot of bad ones first.

I’m a firm believer in this principle. So much so, in fact, that I go out of my way to have as many bad ideas as I possibly can every single day. Sometimes I even go on what I’ve come to call “idea walks” where I wander the streets of my town late at night with my notebook in my right hand and my pen in my left and just write down everything that pops into my head. From topics I want to write about on this here blog and funny words that I’d like to memorize to ideas for software projects and fun places to take my kids. It all gets scrawled down, every last bit of it. Each bit of junk that I jot down will end up in one of these three buckets:

1. Awful, waste-of-paper ideas : This is what makes up at least 80% of my notes, generally more. I’m not kidding when I tell you that some of these would curdle a glass of milk if I said them out loud.
2. Good, workable ideas : Encompassing no more than 2% of my daily output, these are the notions that, on the surface, have some potential to grow into really cool/fun/interesting things if given the proper attention and incubation time.
3. The “eh” ideas : Often times, an idea will pop into my head and subsequently appear on paper to be reviewed later which, when it happens, reveals the idea to be a perfect candidate for bucket number one, except for it’s value in leading my little brain toward additional ideas that just might have some potential.

At first glance, naturally, ideas in bucket three look and smell a great deal like bucket one ideas. Thing is, if  you immediately dismiss every supposedly bad idea you have, you risk losing the potential inspiration that even a bad idea can bring. The trick is to never rule anything out until its had time to simmer a bit. Most every “knowledge worker” out there knows the value in walking away from a problem for a little while so your brain has time to chew on it and, hopefully, find a previously-unexplored angle or approach. Same thing, except more subconscious, I think.

We’ve already talked about my preferred way to have more ideas, but the secret is finding the best way to prime your idea pump and be ready with the bucket. Whether that means walking around a suburb at night, typing like a lunatic into Evernote or Notepad  or whatever or sitting in a bowling alley with a stack of cocktail napkins and a red crayon, figure out how to your brain likes to churn out inspiration and do that as frequently as your spouse will tolerate.

The more time you spend developing the idea habit, the faster and more frequently good ideas will start to flop out of your head onto the table. Just remember that they’re going to be covered in (and may initially be mistaken for) bad ideas.

Photo by mskogly