I’ve always been fascinated by how the human brain works.

It really is incredible. The amount of information it can process in a single moment rivals even the most powerful supercomputers.

In fact, as amazing and powerful as our computers have become, in some ways, they still can’t compare to the biological hardware between our ears. For example, computers are great for automating repeating tasks and searching for answers, but your brain is better suited for ideation and brainstorming.

Which raises the question — where do good ideas come from?

Personally, I believe the best ideas come from following a specific process where you first collect a bunch of relevant information (divergence) and then distill it down into a final deliverable (convergence). The process of ideation starts with a sense of curiosity by asking, “what is this?” and ends with codifying the answer to the question, “what do I think about this?”

In other words, ideation requires both an input and an output.

Let’s consider the input first.

If you want to have more good ideas, you need to have a steady inflow of potentially useful new information. You need the raw materials to work with before you get the revelation.

But if all you do is just gather new information, you won’t find the clarity you’re after. That comes from taking the raw materials and making something new out of them.

In other words, if there is no output, the input is wasted. It’s just more noise that compounds the pressure we feel to try and make sense of it all.

But when information flows freely into and out of your PKM system, you'll be surprised at both the quantity and quality of the ideas you're able to generate.

Be a River, Not a Reservoir

The trick to making sense of things (and sparking great ideas) is to force yourself to create an output.

It doesn’t matter what the output is. It could be a blog post, a podcast episode, a YouTube video, or simply an opinion note you create in your PKM system. It doesn’t have to be public, but you do need a place where you can play with the parts you’ve collected and you do need to assemble them into something new.

You need to have an input, and an output. Just like a river.

You see, a river has an input and an output. Water flows into, through, and out of the river. As a result, the fresh water in a river is a source of life.

But a reservoir is different. A reservoir has an input, but no output. Things can come into a reservoir, but they don’t leave. And without an output, the reservoir begins to turn stale. And eventually, an unattended reservoir becomes a cesspool.

This was the problem with Evernote back in the day and why it earned the unpleasant nickname of “the roach motel.” It was incredibly easy to get things into Evernote, but getting them out was a huge pain.

But that’s not entirely Evernote’s fault. In fact, many people who have left Evernote behind end up making the exact same mistake when they move things into their new app of choice.

As long as there’s no output, it’s only a matter of time until things start to spoil.

Information Needs to Flow

Your mind is like a water wheel — it requires a steady flow in order to turn. Information comes in, creates motion, and then leaves.

But when the flow stops, so does the wheel. Without an output, it won’t be long until you start to feel anxious and stressed.

That’s because your brain wants to make sense of what it’s collected. You need to give it a way to express itself.

The way I do this is by writing. Sometimes it’s a blog post, sometimes it’s a newsletter, and sometimes it’s a video script. But there is something about typing out my thoughts on a subject that helps me codify what I really think.

There’s an old saying that “thoughts disentangle themselves through lips and pencil tips.” I’d add “and also clicky keyboards.”

So the next time you're feeling the pressure from a lack of clarity on something, create a new opinion note in your PKM system and just start writing about what you think. Clarity will come, and will likely bring with it new and better ideas.

Something Cool: TfT Hacker’s Kanban-Based Eisenhower Matrix

There was a pretty cool conversation on Twitter this week (I refuse to call it X) where TfT Hacker took the Eisenhower Matrix idea and implemented it using the Kanban plugin and some CSS code. He even wrote a blog post and put together a sample vault so you can see it in action.

But I have to admit that the idea of dragging tasks between the different categories is not really appealing to me. After spending some time playing with it myself though, I think there are other use cases where this could really be handy. For example, doing a SWOT analysis when putting together a marketing plan for you business:

In the screenshot above, I simply took TfT Hacker’s CSS file and modified it slightly. If you know even a little bit of CSS, this is very easy to customize.

I highly recommend you check out his post here if this concept is of interest to you and download his sample vault for yourself.

Book Notes: Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson

If you want to dive deeper into the ideation process and how it works, I highly recommend Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson. We covered this book for Bookworm a while back, and it really helped me understand the environment required for good ideas to thrive. If you wish you had either more ideas or better ideas, this book is for you.

If you want to download my notes from this book, click here.

— Mike

P.S. I'm still putting the finishing touches on my new centralized community, but one of the benefits of being a community member is that you'll have access to ALL of my book notes there in 4 formats: PDF, OPML, MindNode, and Markdown. If you want to be the first to know when it's ready, click here.