Your Cerebral Colossus
The brain is a marvel of creation. The most touted and sophisticated super computers of even our current technological Renaissance age do not hold a match stick far less a candle to this unique human possession. But this miracle creation has revealed certain quirks over the past century that has continued to astonish scientists and researchers. You might think why I am waxing eloquent about the wonder creation that is the human brain when the title of the article is something to do with the magic of the humble Post It. Bear with me. I promise it will be worth the while.


The Humble Post It
The next time you are looking to generate some ideas and need an effective brainstorming method or want to solve a problem at home or at work, look no further than to the humble Post It. The Post It is of course that great creation of 3M which started out as a mere note taking device which you stick on to anything from notice boards to computer screens to refrigerator doors (a reason it used to be called stickies) has found its well deserved glory as a full fledged brainstorming tool. What? A Post It Note a brainstorming tool! Your sneer or snort may be spontaneous. However, just bear with me while I lay out the case for this.

One of the cardinal principles of brainstorming is the writing down of thoughts, muses, questions and so on in keyword form - as in, briefly, using a minimum of words. What this approach achieves is throwing up associations and triggers. Given this scenario, there can be no slicker tool than the Post It. To begin with, the size of the Post It makes it almost mandatory to keep the idea or keyword brief, an astonishingly easy first step. This results in being precise and to the point. Too often, our ideas get lost in the verbiage of rambling thoughts. Brevity, after all is the soul of not just wit but also ideation.

So, what are key words? Keywords are centrally associative words for big concepts.


Post It Content
What keywords then should go into a Post It when brainstorming? Just one idea. Yes, one idea per Post It Note. What is the big deal with this method? Well, it takes the same powerful premise that Mind Maps do. For those who missed my VOD on mind maps, click here. Mind Maps also use a central idea to start with and then each branch consists of just one idea. By restricting each Post It to one idea, you have given yourself permission to detect relationships between ideas (and Post Its).  It is an established fact that there are actually no real inventions (from scratch) per se. They are in all instances of discoveries that use the SCAMPER acronym representing Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Maximize (or Minimize), Put to other use, Eliminate and Re-Arrange or Reverse of a particular thought or idea.

Post Its began their incarnation as stickies. So, you can move your Post Its around. 3M in an excellent initiative of reverse engineering, introduced Post It Charts on which you can stick Post Its and then move them around without leaving any ugly tell tale glue marks behind. Try that with other brainstorming tools! By moving them around and since they each represent one idea, it is like associating related ideas - a powerful facet of innovation. In fact relationships between concepts, thoughts are central to the ideation process. Post Its facilitate this enormously. The icing on the cake is that such radial relationships gleaned from Post Its being moved around are the ways your brain also sprays its cerebral thinking magic.

So, your brain will thank you profusely for the favor you granted it by using a great ally - the humble Post It.


Patterns
Your brain is also a pattern recognition machine. It automatically goes to work on related elements and ideas. This is why when each Post It contains just an idea and you move ideas around you are actually harnessing the awesome ability of a the brain to detect patterns. It is like Swiss Engineer George de Mestral who noticed that the burdock burrs (tiny seeds covered in hundreds of hooks) clinging to his sleeve were actually interlocking hooks. He immediately associated that with an out of box thinking use as a fastener (an alternative to zips) and thus was born an entire industry - that of the mighty Velcro.


Color
Color brings an entirely new and potent dimension to creativity. Color has magical qualities when it comes to idea generation. Color triggers the limbic system part of the brain, the one that is to do with emotions. Think about it. What would you associate with the color red? Passion, of course. That is why a red Ferrari invokes excitement and adventure. It triggers emotions.

It is the combination of the Post It and color that creates the magic. For instance, you could use a blue Post It for facts, yellow for opinions, purple for assumptions and so on. Suddenly, you have elevated the humble Post It to a tool that boosts creativity by kindling the imagination. Albert Einstein once famously said: Imagination is more powerful than knowledge. Each of the colors representing a different category or facet or attribute depending on what you are looking at, allow your imagination to soar and your creativity to get sparked.


Let me leave you with this suggestion.