Mind Mapping

A Daily 21 is a term I came up with that means asking a question and then writing down at least 21 solutions. Once you start, you don’t stop until there are 21 or more solutions. It’s an excellent way to wake your brain up in the morning.

How I got the idea

I came across the idea years ago when I heard motivational speaker Brian Tracy talk about the concept of “Mindstorming.” He said to ask a question and write out 20 answers to the question.

Then, a few years later, my sales coach Anne got me to do a similar technique. Anne personally used her technique every day to come up with some of the most insane and creative ideas I’ve ever heard of. People in the area flocked to her for business solutions.

How to do a Daily 21

When I sit down to answer my question I don’t get up until I’ve written down at least 21 ideas. I don’t like 20, because it seems like the typical amount you would set for a goal. I always like to go past my goals, so the 21st idea feels like a bonus to me.

Some days the ideas seem to flow and I can go on for pages, but other days I get stuck and have to think hard for the last five or ten. It’s great mental exercise and often times, the answers you come up with are immediately useful. If I have more than 21 ideas, I keep going, but if I’m struggling to get to 21, I force myself to keep at it until I hit the magical number.

How to think great ideas

The goal in a Daily 21 isn’t to have perfect ideas, but rather to sit down and think a lot of thoughts. Brilliant thinkers do just that. They think about a lot of things and can then select their best ideas from there.

6 Ways to Be More Creative With A Daily 21

1. It gets the old ideas out of your head so you can think new ideas

The simple act of writing or typing out your ideas helps flush them out of your mind so you can stop focusing on old ideas and start thinking about new and better ones. Just try it. Once you write down the five or ten ideas that you constantly think about a subject, you’ll suddenly find better ideas come out.

2. The first few ideas start normal, but the last few get creative

I bet the first five or six responses will come right off the top of your head right away. They’re the generic answers that float around in the front of your mind. It’s usually not until the 18th or 19th ideas that the gems start to come out. That’s when you start stretching your mind and come up with something new.

3. It only takes a few minutes, so if none of your ideas are good, you haven’t wasted much time

It’s rare that you’ll ever come up with 21 ideas that are all duds, but sometimes that’s the case. Luckily, a Daily 21 only takes five or ten minutes to complete, and it still exercised your thinking abilities. Here’s the real cool part. If you do another Daily 21 on the same topic the next day, or even later the same day, you’ll usually come up with better results.

4. Great ideas often come from crazy ideas

In most brainstorming sessions, when someone blurts out a funny or silly answer, someone else will usually say, “That’s stupid,” and kill the creative process. Making a list only for yourself lets you write out every idea, even the crazy ones. It gets the crazy ideas out of your head, and you’d be surprised  how many great ideas come from crazy ones. The secret is to take the crazy idea and try to make it ‘slightly’ more realistic.

5. If you tell someone, “I’ll think about that problem and get back to you,” you can follow through and actually help them out

If you tell someone that you’ll think about some sort of problem, you can take 5-10 minutes during your breakfast or daily commute and do just that. You can then pick the top two or three solutions out of the 21 to share with them.

6. Like anything, the more you do it, the better you get

Like anything, when you’re first starting out, you may get mixed results. After doing Daily 21s for a few days, or a few weeks, you’ll start to see some pretty cool results. Let me know how it goes.