We all know how easy it is to come up with ideas and how hard it is to implement them. The funnel through which ideas are poured into results is narrow, yet most people still dump in way too much creative juice, causing it to overflow. This creative spillage is wasteful and frustrating.
1) Recognize that the funnel is narrow — there is only a small percentage of ideas that get turned into results. No reason to come up with 100 ideas if the funnel can only handle 2.
2) Work on expanding the neck of the funnel, not the mouth. — When faced with a creative problem, many think the answer lies in capturing as many ideas as possible. But it’s not the mouth of the funnel that determines how much comes out the other end, it’s the neck. Focus on increasing the number of ideas you can turn into results, instead of how many you can take in.
3) Let it settle and clean it out — if your funnel is backed up, there is no reason to keep pouring more ideas into it. Let is sift through what’s in there already and clean out whatever bad ideas might be stuck inside before trying again.
