Accidental Genius

Today you’ll take thirty minutes to dump all the information you have about a subject onto the paper, and you’ll leave it at that. Tomorrow, you’ll review your information dump and take ten minutes to write out some best-case, worst-case scenarios that stem from your previous day’s efforts. The next day, take your accumulated thoughts and free-asso

Points to Remember • Assumptions help us lead productive lives. At times, though, formerly helpful assumptions can hinder us when we don’t realize they’re there or we misapply them. • How can we check for our assumptions? By using freewriting to play with a situation’s rules. • There are two ways to play with the rules: (1) Pretend an unfamiliar pa

When I’m working with clients, I tell them to temporarily put aside considerations of others and of worldly success, and I ask that they make a list. What kind of list? It’s an inventory of everything that fascinates or has fascinated them at any point in their lives.

2. Give yourself a common definition of the word. If you look back to my empowerment excerpt, you’ll see that I begin by laying bare the word for what it really is, including its most overused, lifeless connotations. I tell myself what other people “see” when they discover the word on a page or come upon it in life.

When Bellman first sits down to write, he uses the time to learn what he’s thinking about without having to explain himself to other people. He doesn’t want to use the page as a means of persuading others, making money, or making himself famous. When they are addressed too early, he sees those factors as corrupting forces. They get in the way of de

1. Pick a word to examine. As you comb through a management text, a magazine article, or your freewriting, or as you work your way through a business day, you’ll come across words whose definitions seem taken for granted, words that are used as a way to stop thinking rather than start it. These are the words to pay attention to.

One of my prose rules has to do with keeping the writing step and the revising step separate. When you try to write and edit at the same time, you overwhelm yourself.

Try This: Over the next two days, use your freewriting to come up with a hundred possible solutions for one of your dearest problems. That’s right, 100. Some of the solutions can be mundane, others can be outrageous, and still others can be silly.

The simplest thing I could do to make a difference would be …