Continuing on from the suggestions for no filter brainstorming and free writing, I find a valuable tool for generating ideas and coming up with solutions is to create a mind map.

This involves having a central thought or idea, then adding to it with all the other thoughts that occur that are related.

Different branches of the mind map then also inspire different thoughts and ideas of their own, which, in turn, lead to additional branches, thoughts and ideas.

As with the brainstorm and free writing processes, creating a mind map can help formulate new ways of looking at an issue that I may not have considered otherwise.

It’s also possible to view this mind map creation process as being the equivalent of my having a dialogue with my own internal ChatGPT – the different branches providing relevant prompts that generate the types of responses I might not have come up with otherwise.