Brainstorming and its limitations

We retrieve recently acquired ideas more readily because they are more available in our memory. This may engender a bias in confirmation as our mind tends to think towards them whilst they may not be the most relevant ideas. (Ahrens ch. 12)

Therefore, ideas that can come out from brainstorming are tainted with availability bias. They are either new encounters or are filled with strong emotional attachment. They are not necessarily relevant to the topic or problem-to-solve or good to follow through afterwards. (Ahrens; ch. 13)

• ‘An idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it’s easily available to you.’ — Charles T. Munger

Brainstorming as the start of a project (or in any ideation phase or activity) is basically evocation of previously encountered thoughts/ideas (of certain quality), sourced from or triggered by the external stimuli; or banal fillers (if ideas really just ‘pop’ out of the blue).

• ‘The promotion of brainstorming as a starting point is all the more surprising as it is not the origin of most ideas: The things you are supposed to find in your head by brainstorming usually don’t have their origins in there. Rather, they come from the outside: through reading, having discussions and listening to others[.]’ (Ahrens; ch. 7)

In consequence, it is worth while to employ an external system which helps us not only record but connect the once-encountered thoughts and ideas. The scaffolding structure in the system would form a solid dialogue/discussion between these ideas and provide us thought-through thinking for inspiration.

Related

• [Note-taking is different from note-making]
• [Knowledge is locked up if not freed from the source context]

Last update: 2021-02-14

References

Ahrens, Sönke. [How To Take Smart Notes]: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Sönke Ahrens, 2017.