Find Success with Little Ideas

On my Ideas Website Somebody commented that they had been in their car when they saw somebody wearing a really warm coat. Knowing the brand she then went on to create a Squidoo Lens on it which became her first successful lens with lots of traffic and page views. She then used that as a model to build many more clothing based websites which have all done well.

She said that when she had her first "brainwave" that she'd parked her at the first opportunity and wrote down some notes. Oak trees grow from tiny acorns, and business success often grows from tiny ideas.

Moral : Wrote down your Ideas immediately!

Creativity Related to Insanity

Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works.

Brain scans reveal striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia.

Both groups lack important receptors used to filter and direct thought.

It could be this uninhibited processing that allows creative people to "think outside the box", say experts from Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

In some people, it leads to mental illness. The trick is to insane enough to have brilliant ideas but sane enough to use them. There have certainly been cases where people considered mentally sub-normal have suddenly come out with a brilliant insight. Savants (people capable of astonishing memory and mental calculation) like the rain man also cross the boundary. Creative people often have have or feat they have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder).

In truth many of us have to manage our focus (ADD) sufficiently in such a way we can pursue a career and pay our bills and still find outlets for our creativity.

Barbara Sher discovered that once creative people recognize and accept the fact that they are Scanners they can learn to live with and even take advantage of their lack of focus and inability to lead projects to fruition.

Many Idea Creators are Scanners

Many people good at creating ideas suffer at the same time from being scanners, that means they cannot focus on one thing at a time or more accurately cannot see a project through to fruition before they they throw themselves headfirst into the next best thing.

One suggestion by Babara Sher is to start a Scanner Daybook, use this to note down all your various ideas as soon as they appear . When you are distracted by a tangential idea write it down and in this way "get it out of your system" then return to your previous task. 

Having tried many notebook solutions I now prefer a simple text file which I can email to my cell-phone as required. This contains my ideas, my to-dos and anything else that I think of. I have found over the years that anything more complicated seems to fall by the way side sooner or later.

Whatever your preference  the Number One Rule of Idea Creation is to get that IDEA written down, ideas that continuously churn around in your head are just wasting your "computer power" and blocking you from thinking of something even better. No you must get ideas out where you came see them in the daylight so you can begin to evaluate any flaws.

If you want to learn how to deal with your seeming  lack of focus and see if you are a scanner then read this review "Are you a Scanner?"

Are Ideas Created in a Day-Dreaming Mist?

Some of the best ideas are where you suddenly see a way of exploiting a resource, something that you've been under utilizing. Any way I was partly dozing this Sunday afternoon and it occurred to me that I could create a Squidoo lens on Turnips which would be a jokey lens on the vegetable itself and people who make mistakes. Now even if you consider that it wasn't a particularly brilliant idea, it is for me because I earn an increasing amount from Squidoo Lens and am always after one which might capture peoples imaginations.

Anyway as befits an Idea-Smith I immediately tried to see if I could capture the train of thought which produced the idea, no luck, I couldn't seem to rewind my memory of just a few seconds ago. The Turnip idea didn't come out of the blue because I'd already invented/created the concept of a Squidoo Turnip in another Squidoo Lens, so my subconscious must have brought it up the the surface and a conscious part of my brain must have "grabbed it".

So once again the actual moment of idea creation was lost, furthermore when I tried to recall it, I seemed to run into a barrier!

Creative Daydreaming Or How We Create Ideas

When we are traveling or waiting somewhere our minds drift into daydream mode. This is when we mull over past events, our hopes, worries, obligations we need to fulfill and so on, the mind might be thought to be in freewheel mode. It is during this process that we often have our best ideas in fact we are unconsciously modeling many situations and every now and again we create a new association between existing two information nodes.

We are always juggling limited resources be they time, money, relationships or energy so we require a stream of ideas to allow us to exploit our resources in the most most efficient manner.


 Many people however spend an enormous amount of a time mulling over past failures or how unfair life is, if any good could come from this it would have done so already, we should therefore try and direct our daydreaming in useful directions. This is one of the chief benefits of the positive thinking that is encouraged by nearly every career and life mentor.

Nearly Caught an Idea at its Birth Today

I've been wearing my walking boots because of the Snow and Ice here in the UK. Anyway I was at the Swimming Pool undoing my laces and was marveling once again at how comfortable and light Boots are today, and then thought I should sell them on the principle that you should only promote things you are enthusiastic about. Then it occurred to me that I run a website called abingdonwalks.co.uk and that would be an excellent place to sell boots probably via Amazon.

I instantly realised tried to recall exactly when and how this idea popped into my head but it was already too late I just got a kind of blur. I've been trying to capture that instant for a while, but it seems elusive.

Creating Ideas Lens Nominated for an Award

My Creating More Ideas Squidoo Lens (mini-Website) is nominated for Best Potential Giant Squid Lens Award which will help publicize my crusade to think of ever more creative ideas. Please vote for it , search for "create more ideas"

Mapping the Journey to My Next Brilliant Idea

I was desperate to think of an idea for a new Squidoo lens, then I hit upon the idea of discovering how I'd thought of my existing lens. I was astonished to find that I didn't know , I'd had ideas my unconsciously. I decided I wanted to try and capture the moment an idea appeared , determined what had seeded the idea and finally learn how to create more and better ideas, in short to become an ideas factory! I created this blog to map my journey to the brilliant idea. But my actual ideas website is here at Creating More Brilliant Ideas and now it is up for an award Best Potential Giant Squid please vote for it here

Always Seeking Ideas for More Leverage

Leverage allows us to achieve greater efficiency. We have to constantly seek ways to get more payload from our efforts, more return on our investment. There is no value or merit in just slogging away. Time invested in seeking an easier way or more effective way to complete our tasks ahead of schedule is worth gold. We have to think recursively like Tom Sawyer who got everyone else to paint the fence. We mustn't think it dishonorable to find an easy way out, I mean if you copy an answer in an exam that's cheating but not in real life where all that is important is to get the job done. Once we have completed a task we should also try to find ways to reuse the result. So in my line I can write a post blog it with variations on different blogs, eventually creating an ezine-article, then a a Squidoo lens and eventually my first book .

So what ways can you think of to be more productive, to get the same results with less effort, can you delegate can you outsource, can you Google up a ready made solution?

Archimedes said "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world, we should always be seeking that lever and that fulcrum

Great Places to Get Ideas From

• Libraries : New Purchases Shelf


• Libraries : Just Returned Shelf


• Bookshop : Top-Ten Non-Fiction Books


• Amazon.com Best Sellers


• Google Trends What people are searching for


• Google Wonder Wheel , at the top of a Google Search Results Page there is a show options button, click it to see Google Wheel (visual) and Related Searches

Many Ideas Go Unnoticed

Just to note ideas I've had recently which went under the radar by that I mean that I created them with out being aware of the process.

1) CV: I researched for things that I need on my CV to bring it up to date, they are Zend Frameworks, Object Orientated PHP and Drupal a PHP/MySQL CMS. (Have installed all the necessary software and built a Drupal test rig)

2) Amazon books: I've got a 1000 or so second books for sale at Amazon, decided to lower the prices of all my books to see what kind of short term sales I could achieve if I wanted to make Amazon a major income source. (will report on this)

3) Am going to turn more of photo collections into Squidoo Lens

So you can see that none of the above ideas are particularly extraordinary even so the first two could have a dramatic affect on my income and the third a little, but I do need to ACT on them! You too have similar ideas and you also need to ensure that you act on them.

Capture Your Idea Birds with a Nokia E71 (Best Note Taking Smart Phone?)

It is vital to write down (capture) your ideas as soon as they appear, wherever you are. In the past I've used every kind of notebook, scrap of paper etc, unfortunately these have often been mislaid or forgotten. I've been looking for the ideal gadget for note and idea taking for a long time. This must be simple, compact, good battery life, have a full QWERTY keyboard and always be with me.

I pondered and was tempted by a Linux Netbook but I know I wouldn't always have it by my side, this might be different for you if you always carry a bag/briefcase.

The only thing that is already always with me my cell phone, so I plunged for a QWERTY Smart Phone the E71 , so far it's answered all my needs. I've been recording my experiences with this phone here at squidoo.com/nokia-e71-smart-phone .

Brainstorming with Tom Butler-Bowdon

Met up with Tom author of the best selling 50 Self-Help Classics in Blackwells Coffee Shop in Oxford; what a place to brainstorm surrounded by all that knowledge!

I mentioned that I'd created a Squidoo Lens on Everyday Sayings From the Bible which I said had been along with Shakespeare had been one of the greatest influences on the English language. So he bounced right back with why didn't a start a lens for William Shakespeare and so here it is Sayings that come from Shakespeare .

Now talk about my Serendipity Lens the first thing I learn is that the Knock-Knock-Who's-There joke probably was originated by Shakespeare that is another of my lens!!

Join Squidoo here and see what all the fuss is about!

Turn your Vacation into a Squidoo Lens

I wanted to publish my holiday photos, I also wanted to document the gradual disappearance of the traditional seaside villas here in Andernos les Bains, France or rather record the ones that were left. I thought of putting them up at Google's Picasa but then thought (*idea*) why not create a Squidoo Lens which will allow me to post my pictures and add descriptive text AND earn a modest residual income over the years to come!

Here is the result Andernos les Bains. Have you joined Squidoo yet? Join totally free here

An Idea : Ruthlessly Pruning My Projects

I got a request to renew a domain, a quick check revealed that I'd earned a miserable 15 cents Adsense from the site in the last year. From this sprung An Idea that I didn't know which of my many projects were earning me money, that I ought to find out, and then draw up a shortlist of the most successful. Thereafter to only promote and nurture this pruned list. The other projects being left to their own devices.

So do you know which of your activities or products are the most profitable , are you ruthless and disciplined enough to concentrate on just these?

Concentrating on the most profitable products or services is a key aspect of Successful people and business?

So do you know which are yours? Try to write a list now!

Going thru an Idea Creation Barren Period

Yep, no brilliant new idea big or small for a few weeks now, but not to worry idea creation is like that, I know that when I finally get a new idea that I'll probably get a whole bunch of them (Just like waiting for buses!)

I'm carrying my little notebook around just in case!

The Process of Creating More Ideas

A few weeks ago I was doing a walk across the Berkshire Downs when an idea popped into my head fully fledged (more about the actual idea later). That was both wonderful and annoying, annoying because I don't know what prompted it , or where it came from, I guess I was day dreaming while trying to keep up with my fitter colleague.

This blog will be used to log and record my ideas, and also what I learn about Idea Generation.

So what was the actual idea? well I am an expert for a particular text editor and I post a lot of tips on the Internet but have never thought until that instant to create a blog. I now have done that see here zzapper.co.uk/vim-tips-blog/

So where do they come from? One second the idea wasn't there, next second it's arrived and seems obvious. More to come ...