How to make an idea doable

Matt Weston, 13 Feb

The secret to making anything doable is to lower your bar. Say it’s done before it’s done. Say it’ll do and take another look in the morning. The following post is throwaway. But it’s done. And, as many editors know, the most appealing quality of a piece of work you’re waiting for from a writer is doneness, not goodness.

A Technique for Producing Ideas
by James Webb Young
* producing ideas is as definite a process as the production of Fords. you run an assembly line for ideas
* gather raw material on 3″ by 5″ ruled cards
* masticate
* seek relationships between your cards
* get bored of the process
* get a second wind
* make absolutely no effort to work on it, and put it out of your mind
* constantly think about it
* out of nowhere your idea will appear!
* put the idea to work on the cold, grey dawn of the morning after
* recognise that a good idea has self-expanding qualities

A Technique for Reducing Ideas
by Charlie Davies and Matt Weston
* reducing ideas is as definite a process as the production of Fords. you run a disassembly line for ideas
* think what you would do if only you had the money
* lower your bar
* keep lowering
* until you can lower no more
* cut your idea in half
* keep cutting
* until your idea is uncuttable, like an atom
* do your atom


Reader comments
1 Comment so far, add yours below

Danny Hope says:
No! Cutting your idea in half is a way of producing half an idea. You have to boil it down, distill it, until you’re left with the one thing that differentiates your idea from the others.
by Danny Hope on 14 Feb

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