Necessity is the mother of invention.

I remember as a boy once stumbling upon an old book that had catalogued useless inventions. I don’t have it anymore, but I still fondly think of the craziest items that were displayed in its pages. Some of these ideas would easiy be considered completely lunatic nowadays while others had some merit, yet never made it to the market.

As it had been printed in the early sixties, its author had done his research on patents that had come into the public domain, which is why the vast majority of examples were taken from ideas that had been patented between 1880 and 1925.

The first world war had produced a staggering amount of crippled men, and so some of the patents reproduced mechanical arms and legs. Other ideas revolved around the need to make life more practical in a number of domains related to daily life.

This is only to say that ideas have alway been abundant and that more than often, they do find their way to the minds of inventors out of the need to find a solution to a practical problem. And its a great way to keep on generating new ideas.

In a previous article I made mention of how David Bowie came up with the ideas for lyrics for his songs. He uses a brainstorm technique bases on chaos and chance. In this way, thousands of ideas were generated.

Another way of coming up with new ideas is created by being particularly observant. It could be as inocuous as finding a new way of saving time in people’s daily routines, for example, a new way of cleaning shoes or getting rid of hair in hairbrushes.

Adversity is the source of inspiration.

If something you need to do regularly has become a terribly boring thing to do, so much so that you have come to positively abhor the moment you have to set yourself to the task, maybe this adversity could be a source of inspiration for you to come up with a new way of doing things.

Instead of concentrating on how much you hate doing whatever it is you are doing, focus on what you could do to finish the task more quickly, or make it less boring, more effective or productive, you will be amazed how quicly your mind will come up with suggestions.

Another great technique was passed on to later generations by a most famous entrepreneur named Dale Carnegie. He transmitted his infallible trick of going to sleep with a question which he addressed to his mind or sub-conscious. Before going to sleep, he would take a blank sheet of paper and on top, he would write down his question or describe his problem.

He would then request a solution to his problem or an answer to his question and put his pen and the paper containing the request on the night table just before going to sleep. Invariably, he would find exactly what he was seeking, sometimes, it would even wake him up in the middle of the night. Having pen and paper ready, he could write down his idea before he lost it again by morning.

You won’t believe it works until you try it out, but I can assure you it does.