Don’t Wait to Write This Idea
This post is written by William Hardaway, a spectacular d.school program alum. Will is the founder and owner of WillGo LLC, a creative agency that facilitates conversations about oppression and designs authentic solutions to stop hate. Will is also an instructional designer at a public University focused on inclusive classrooms.You can connect with him here.
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When a good idea hits, it’s lightning in a bottle, an epiphany, or a divine intervention. It takes us on a new path, but in an unexpected moment. The fact is we process and exchange information internally at a very high rate. Psychologists from Queen’s University in Canada found that humans typically have more than 6,000 thoughts in a single day. Imagine the ideas that are getting away because we are not ready for them. The ideas we are too fearful to follow because they do not make “sense.”
I pass on ideas all the time. My inner critic would be too judgmental or make me feel embarrassed for a mere thought. Moreover I used to table ideas that I thought were actually good. “I’ll write this idea later.” I started a combination of writing-incoherently and feedback-seeking. Whether it is in my phone, a napkin, or on my hand I write down as many thoughts as I can when I am in the moment. I also view feedback as part of the writing process. I started sending emails to get feedback on an idea to a list of 10 people and yield feedback from 3-5 people before submitting, proposing, or presenting. Not only did I get great feedback, but my network grew stronger because people felt like they were trusted collaborators in my work.
If you have not paid attention to what Kanye is doing with DONDA, you’re probably not as big of a hip hop head as I am. He is living in an arena, recording an album, and every week having people attend a listening party. He is writing his ideas, actually putting them on wax, and getting feedback from a live crowd before actually releasing the album. (Ed: Jon Bon Jovi did something similar ~35 years ago before releasing “a little ditty about Jack and Diane…” I’ve been dying to write a post on that for a while now!)
What I urge you to do is think out loud, write it down, and get more feedback than you can handle. I just had a thought, I’ll write this idea now.
Related: Don’t Be Efficient
Related: Capture Instead of Compartmentalizing
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The fine folks over at Section recently interviewed me about some common mistakes I’m seeing folks make when they use AI. One of the biggest ones? The tendency to expect too little, and get just that.