Ideas A Day

Becoming an idea machine

I created an app to help you write down ten ideas each day. Why? Become an idea machine. It was based on a book by Claudia Azula. I never read the book, I didn’t need to. I understood right away from the cover. Don’t judge a book by the cover?

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Idea machine

For each day I wrote down ten ideas, it didn’t matter how stupid, implausible it seemed. Just write it down!. The ideas were all of one category. For example, business ideas, birthday gift ideas.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Just write it down! What did I learn from writing down 10 ideas each day for a month?

The beginning is hard, the ideas aren’t all great. By the fourth idea, your idea well runs out. Turns out ideas are like a muscle in your brain. The more ideas you write down, the more ideas “find” you. Almost as if they’re desperate to be saved from purgatory.

By the two week mark, the ideas are flowing.I put some into use and they led to some good opportunities but unfortunately I didn’t follow through.

To this day I sleep with a notebook next to my bed, something about a dark room stimulates my idea juices.

Edison would generally hold two steel balls in both hands when he was preparing to sleep and was challenged by a daunting large problem. Some naps he would be sitting upright in a chair. Sitting up made it a bit harder for him to fully sleep allowing him to stay lightly conscious during these sessions. On the floor he placed directly below his closed hands metal saucers. The premise was simple, as he entered into the hypnogogic state, the body generally goes through a series of muscle reactions from a loosening to a sort of paralysis. In this transition Edison would drop the steel balls and the would crash to the floor, hitting the metal saucers for added effect and produce loud sound to awaken him. He would then be awakened by the sound and have a ready pad and pencil to record anything that he was thinking of just before being awakened.