Like LEGO blocks, the more pieces you have, the easier it is to build something interesting. Imagine that instead of starting your next project with a blank slate, you started with a set of building blocks—research findings, web clippings, PDF highlights, book notes, back-of-the-envelope sketches—that represent your long-term effort to make sense

... See more

The most creative innovations are often new combinations of old ideas. Innovative thinkers don't create, they connect. Furthermore, the most effective way to make progress is usually by making 1 percent improvements to what already works rather than breaking down the whole system and starting over.

Now, the spark file itself is not all that unusual: that's why Moleskins or Evernote are so useful to so many people. But the key habit that I've tried to cultivate is this: every three or four months, I go back and re-read the entire spark file. And it's not an inconsequential document: it's almost fifty pages of hunches at this point, the length... See more