Creative Exercises List

Trains idea fluency and helps you move past obvious answers by lowering the pressure to be right.

The Bad Idea List

Write down 15 intentionally bad ideas for a problem, song, project, or decision you are stuck on. Do not make them clever. Make them awful. Then review the list and circle anything that contains a useful piece hiding inside the junk.

Breaks mental habits and reveals new perspectives by borrowing someone else’s worldview.

Borrow a Brain

Pick a person with a very specific point of view: a mechanic, a seven-year-old, a diner waitress, a drummer, your most practical friend. Answer a problem from their perspective. It can be any problem in your life, big or small. What would they notice first? What would they ignore?

Encourages flexible thinking by forcing you to solve problems with unexpected constraints.

The Wrong Tool

Choose a problem and solve it using the wrong tool on purpose. Explain a business problem like a nursery rhyme. Plan a website like a diner menu. Write a sales page like liner notes. The mismatch is the point.