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How to generate new ideas

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Our curiosity about the world and our discovery skill, so sharp in childhood, get dulled by education, work cultures and supervisors that tell us not to ask complicated questions, not to take time to look around and not to try something new for the fear of messing up. But every active adult needs to get new ideas. We all have got to figure out how to do our jobs and how to do it better. Here are five hints on how to inspire yourself to generate new ideas.

Hint no.1: Ask questions

Take a few minutes each day to write down questions about issues that you have. It could be anything related to advancing in your career, changing processes in your organisation, or a new approach to an old task. The point is, the more questions you ask yourself, the more ideas you will have about how to solve different challenges.

Hint no.2: Seek surprises

You need to be fully engaged with your world if you want to be innovative. So turn off your iPad, put down your daily newspaper and give yourself a chance to be present and connect with the world around you. You may be surprised by what is going on.

Hint no.3: Watch and learn

Observing what is happening around you is a crucial part of discovery. Take the time to look at how things happen, and watch those who do things differently than you. Try networking with people of different nationalities, industries or educational backgrounds, they might offer you a fresh viewpoint.

Hint no.4: Role-play

Try a role-play alone or with others in your team and imagine how an innovative company like Apple or Facebook would view your problem or organisation. What questions would be asked and how might the answers be approached?

Hint no.5: Exercise associative thinking

Exercising associative thinking - drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields -can be fun. Try to force the most surprising, unrealistic associations by, for example, picking a word randomly from a dictionary or magazine and saying "what does that word have to do with our problem?"

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