Not the First Thing, but the Second Thing
When coming up with concepts and ideas there is one rule I follow:
The first idea is not as good as the second or third idea.
There is an experiment created by Stefan Mumaw where he asks an audience to brainstorm for 3 minutes and try to come up with the most words around a topic. When reviewing the lists, the first 10 words that anyone comes up with are usually present in everyone’s lists. But after the 10th or 12th word, something great happens. That’s when the real original ideas start to pour. When you are forced to think longer, that’s when you think outside the box.
The first group of ideas is the inside-the-box ideas, the second group is the outside-the-box ideas.
Although the first group tends to be more relevant, the second group of ideas is always more original. Therefore, when I’m looking for interesting concepts for a project, I usually follow this experiment and start with a long list of ideas that allows me to free my head from the already-known things and I wait longer for those valuable concepts that only come to life with long thinking.
