The Post-It (Brainstorming) Strategy

When starting to think around a problem, sometimes you have so much information and no context. So many ideas and no strategy. A lot of muscle, but no skeleton. You are bogged down by information overload and need to focus on relevant ideas that solve your problem.

When this happens, I like to use what I call “The Post-It Method” to focus my thinking and generate new ideas. It’s a brainstorming strategy that one of my friends taught me while at was working on strategy and new business pitches at my old agency. It’s pretty simple.

How To Do It

1. Collect all the information you can
2. Distill it down to points you can fit on a post-it (8 words or less)
3. Place it so you can see everything
4. Start culling/reducing/organizing to build your idea

Why It Works

I really like this method because I’m a visual thinker. I like to see information and problems. By culling everything down to simple points on post-it notes, you can physically shift things around to build arguments. You can group like-minded ideas. You can toss stuff that doesn’t work into the recycling bin.

Give the post-it method a shot the next time you’re stuck on a project. You might find that by having all of the points spread out in front of you, you’ll see things differently. If nothing else, people will think you’re creative from seeing you stand before a wall of post-its and moving them around.

- Christian