3 Ways to Loosen Up your Thinking

"Yeah, my thinking about the case, man, it had become uptight." - The Dude, Big Lebowski.

Here are three things that you can do to loosen up your thinking. Don't think about it - just do it. Go.

1. Take a plain piece of paper

OK, look at that blank piece of paper and feel the pain of writers the whole world over who have to stare at a blank and then somehow try to make a living by making marks on it. Then forget about that and scrunch that piece of paper as tightly as you can into a ball. That's it, really tight. Now. Place that balled up piece of paper on your desk, or somewhere down in front of you and get another piece of blank paper and a pencil or a biro. You've got 5 minutes, as accurately as you can draw every angle and every crease of the balled up piece of paper. Every detail, every wrinkle, every variation of shading.

Begin.

This is an idea taken from "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. The idea is that by giving the "logical" part of your brain something really, really, tedious to do, you make it give up and go away and give the other part of your brain that sees the big picture and makes "illogical" connections a chance.

2. Go somewhere where you can be on your own.

Look around and start pointing to things and naming them out loud. Mug. Computer. Book. Desk. Speakers. Chair.

OK.

Now do the same thing again, but this time give things the wrong name. Point to a mug and call it a "turnip". Point to a chair and call it an "interim report". Try pointing to things and calling them by very concrete names - point to a wall and call it a "haddock" try point to things and giving them very abstract names - point to a biro and call it a "lifetime retrospective". Keep doing this for about 2 minutes.

This idea is taken from Keith Johnstone's book "Impro" - it's a marvellous book. I've no idea what the theory behind it is - I don't think Keith does theory. He says that after you've done this exercise, the world seems to be sharper and more vivid place - it works for me.

3. Read this

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question their fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
when the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

I'm a sucker for poetry. One of the things it does is use words in new ways to see the world differently. Just about everything Robert Graves wrote, poetry and prose is worth reading.

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)