Page 109 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

100 180° THINKING: A TNEREFFID WAY TO IDEATE

180 Traditional
Thinking Thinking

The way to
make it better.
The way everyone
is making it better.
180 Thinking is simply the opposite of traditional thinking,
the way that everyone else is thinking to "make it better."

opposite direction of where conventional wisdom would suggest you
go. That is 180° Thinking.
Going back to our bed example, if conventional wisdom says
“soft,” think “hard.” If conventional wisdom says “warm,” think
“cold.” If conventional wisdom says “low,” think “high.” Whatever
you do, don’t think of more ways to do soft, warm, and low. Not that
there is anything wrong with those properties. And no one is to say
there aren’t better ways of doing those tried-and-true things with
beds. It’s just that those paths of thought are likely being followed by
most other thinkers in this category. Because so many others are
applying their creative energy there, those areas are likely to be a bit
overfarmed for ideas.
You want to find different ideas? Look in a different place.

CREATIVITY ISA MATTER OF DEGREE

Of course, you could make your thinking 90° different, or 10° or 17 ⁄2°
1
different. And, yes, those might be fresh pathways of thought. But I
like 180° Thinking because it’s usually easier to determine the exact
opposite of something than to find 10° of difference. The opposite of a
soft bed is a hard bed. Easy. What’s 10° from soft? I’m not really sure.