book

Brainhack

by Neil Pavitt

March 2016

Intermediate to advanced

192 pages

4h 9m

English

Wiley

Read now

Unlock full access

Don't Break the ChainJust try to do a little bit every day
Accentuate the Positive
Un-Identical Identical Twins
The Fake SmileBe More Determined – Cross Your ArmsStand Like Superman, Be Like Superman

Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, but Words They Can Control YouWhat's in a Name?Maluma or Takete
An Uphill BattleWe've Got Our Eyes on YouThink of a Colour
Laughing All the Way to the BankSeeing a Joke Coming
You Be the JudgeBiased About Our Own Bias
Don't Moan. ComplainHow To Complain1 A complaint should have a purpose2 Start with a positive statement3 Deliver a lean complaint4 End with another positive statement5 Consider your listener6 Use social media properly7 Let it go“Get” Your “But” Into Gear
Turn Performance Anxiety into Performance Energy
Working Holiday
Boil down Your Problem and Let It SimmerTease Your Brain
Why, oh why, oh why?
The A to Zzzzzzz of SleepThe Nap Zone. Time to Hit Snooze.10, 20 or 40 Winks?
Health and SafetyContemptResentmentFriendly banter
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard
To Think Different, Do Different
Don't Fall in LoveFeed the Mind
Writer's Hack
You and ITime to Talk It Out
Single-TaskingFocus TrainingA Busy Mind Is a Focused MindDon't Waste the Power Hour
Blocked Not BlockA Walk Round the BlockAt the startIn the middle
The Cat's Away, the Mice Will PlayWalk the WalkWalk and Talk
Bored Yet?Not All Daydreamers Are Created Equal
Tired Ideas
The Nodding Teddy BearRubber Ducking
FrankensteinThe Sewing MachineGoogle PageRankTo Sleep, Perchance to Solve a Problem
Accentuate the NegativeLegitimized Bitching
Death by Bullet PointBringing Life to a Story

Content preview from Brainhack

31 Don't Try to Have Good Ideas

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”

Émile Chartier

The first rule of having good ideas: Don't try to have good ideas.

What's important is just to have ideas. When you have an idea you don't know how good it is. It can only be judged when you have more ideas to compare it to.

Author and entrepreneur Seth Godin said “Someone asked me where I get all my good ideas, explaining that it takes him a month or two to come up with one and I seem to have more than that. I asked him how many bad ideas he has every month. He paused and said, ‘None'.”

When there's pressure to think of a “great” idea, you start judging your ideas before you've even written them down.

American advertising legend George Lois said that he told everyone in his department to come up with a great idea for a client. He came back in an hour and nobody had any ideas at all. So he said, “Okay, come up with twenty ideas.” He came back in an hour and everyone had twenty ideas. Some were good and some were bad, but they'd all managed to get twenty ideas.

Don't Fall in Love

What's just as bad as being too judgemental is not being judgemental enough. You have an idea and you fall head over heels in love with it and you stop thinking.

It might be a great idea, but it's probably not. It's usually the ideas that you have after sweating over the problem for a bit, which are the best. ...