Project Description

Becoming an idea machine – Experiment #1

Published: March 20, 2019

Last month, I talked a little bit about experiments:

One thing I want to spend more time on is self improvement through self experimentation. Make mindful tweaks to my attitudes or actions for a finite amount of time and see how it makes me feel. See what sticks. Hopefully I’ll learn something about myself in the process and plant some seeds for future useful habits.

This isn’t anything new. I want to try new things, but I want to do it within a framework that lets me measure my progress, whatever that means in the current context. I want to make changes, but I want to do it mindfully. I don’t like spending my time by accident.

There’s a blog called Raptitude that I really love. I think this is where my love affair with life experiments began.

I’ve done a number of experiments in the past: meditation, time tracking, nature walks, adopting a Paleo diet. Some only lasted a few weeks. Others really glopped onto my brain and followed me around for years. They’ve all been positive experiences though that have shaped me in one way or another.

With the exception of free writing, I’ve never written about my experiences with experiments publicly, but I want to change that. I like the accountability that a blog provides. I like the idea of accountability at least.

What are the rules?

This first experiment is all about idea generation.

Write down 10 new app/product/business ideas every day for 30 days in a row

Why ideas?

Being able to generate ideas is an important skill, but idea generation isn’t something we get for free. It’s something that has to be practiced. We have to exercise the idea generating muscles in our brains to foster an environment that’s capable of thinking up things that are uniquely new or impactful.

30 before 30 (01/21/18)

We all have good ideas buried in our heads, but we shouldn’t expect our best ideas to surface on their own. We’ve got to go digging for them. Writing is how we shake the silt out. We won’t strike gold every day, but we’ll never strike gold if we don’t dig.

I wrote 35,280 words in December (01/25/17)

I’ve got a goal to generate 1,000 app ideas (more on this in a future post), and free writing is my space to explore every crazy idea that pops into my head.

250 days later (08/07/17)

A diversity of interests helps us approach problems in new ways. I’ve heard the term “idea sex” used before, and I like the concept. Take two or more seemingly disparate ideas and put them together. See if they make sense together. See if these ideas, when next to each other, spawn new ideas. Mix and match. See what comes out. Having side projects in domains different from our day jobs gives us more experiences to pull ideas from. It gives us more opportunities for idea sex in our daily lives. And every innovation, big or small, starts as an idea.

Two years at Blue Sky (02/22/17)

I’m a little bit obsessed with the concept of ideas, specifically generating new ideas. I think it’s a fun hobby. It’s creative too. Thinking up new ideas makes me view things differently. It feeds my curiosity. Ideas help me ask better questions.

The more new ideas I think up, the easier it is to think up new ideas in the future. It’s like a muscle. The more you do it, the better you get at it. I credit James Altucher’s Choose Yourself book for introducing me to this concept.

(I read Choose Yourself again in 2017. I still love the part about ideas. I wasn’t really into the rest of it though four years removed from my first read.)

I took the idea muscle thing to heart during my summer at DreamWorks. I had a 50 minute commute from San Francisco to Redwood City, and I used that time to write down as many ideas as I could about a random topic I chose every morning. I tried to make my brain sweat every day.

I’ve been writing down my ideas ever since.

One of my 30 before 30 goals is to generate 1000 app ideas. I’ve probably written at least that many since 2014, but they’re not organized or searchable. Many have been recycled in old notebooks. More are rotting on old hard drives.

My idea generation progress has slowed dramatically since my summer at DreamWorks, but I’m ready to start taking it seriously again. I want to make my brain sweat, I want to do it publicly, and I want to share my results.

Why now?

I saw this thing on Product Hunt a few weeks ago. This guy’s been killing it there recently. He’s doing exactly what I’ve been doing, but he’s doing it harder. And he figured out how to make people care about it.

Obviously I’m not the only person interested in this stuff, but until recently I didn’t know where the other people were hiding. It’s inspiring to see people respond so positively. Maybe if I share my ideas, people will show interest in them too.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to duplicate what David Delahunty has achieved, but his work is the kick in the pants I needed to do this thing now instead of later.

What happens next?

Starting today I’m going to write down 10 new ideas. And then 10 more ideas tomorrow. And 10 more the day after that. 30 days, 10 new ideas every day. 300 ideas in total (minimum).

It’s simple, but I know it’ll be challenging too.

Some days I’ll pick a topic to focus the task. Something broad or narrow that every idea that day has to relate to. Topics could be hobbies: animation, podcasts, personal finance, writing, board games, etc. Topics could relate to existing technology: 10 things I could do with the Pokemon API, for instance. Broad things: public transportation. Narrow things: a better urinal experience. Anything really.

One thing I want to focus on during these 30 days is generating moonshot ideas. A lot of the ideas I’ve come up with in the past have been relatively small things. Variations on existing apps. Things that could easily exist with current technology. Things that I myself could build.

That stuff is great. As a developer I’m always on the hunt for promising side projects, but this is in-the-box thinking. I want to spend more time outside the box. It seems more fun out there. That’s where all of the truly original and innovative ideas live. Ideas that haven’t been thought of by anyone before.

Day 1 starts today. I’ll post weekly updates with a wrap-up post at the end. Let the brain sweat begin!

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Photo credit: Pietro Mattia