great ideas are born out of many bad ideas.
you have to pick 10 ideas that all seem awful, and one of them might just be great.
the problem is that the best ideas often come in disguise. instead of realizing that you’ve come up with 1 ok idea, 8 bad ideas, and 1 great idea — you think you have 1 ok idea + 9 bad ones.
thus the trickiest part about bad ideas is self-censorship. it’s not easy to even write them down, let alone show, discuss, or implement them.
the most difficult part of brainstorming is pretending there are no stupid ideas.
— overheard on twitter
the reason for that is that we are taught to judge and to be afraid of judgment from an early age. combine that with the human inclination to save effort, and you have a recipe for never doing anything interesting.
a remedy for that is practice and attitude. make it a habit to come up with lots of ideas, and don’t label them as “bad”. resourcefulness is a muscle, it builds up over time.
just have many ideas.