Grab a pencil and some paper or use sticky notes with a marker. Find a comfy, quiet spot with some space to lay out your sticky notes.
1. Get your thoughts out of your head onto paper
Write down everything you can think of regarding the challenge on separate sticky notes in no particular order. Do your best to stick to the topic and use short but descriptive phrases and write one concept per sticky note.
For example: “online shop”, “social media”, “blog posts”, “shop location”, “customer”, “couriers”
2. Arrange the things into groups or a sequence
One way to arrange the sticky notes is into groups. For example, you could find “people involved”, “to-do list”, “need more info” or whatever other label that comes to mind as useful to categorise your notes.
You could also sort the sticky notes sequentially or as events on a timeline: “past”, “present” and “future”.
3. Ask further probing questions:
- Is there anything that you can add next to each sticky?
- Would it help to change the group names or add more?
- Have I considered all the people involved in the process or scene?
- Have I considered all the steps to take?
- Where do the scenes take place?
- What do I need to make a specific part happen?
- Where do I need more info or help?
4. Be with it for a few days
It’s good to be able to see what you’ve done for a few more days. Take a photo of your notes or write everything down in a notepad and then set a reminder to review them in 24 hours, and again in 48 hours.
Conclusion
Sometimes all we need to move forward is simply to get things out of our heads onto paper. For me, it’s like having a conversation with myself – I can respond to the thoughts and ideas once I see them in front of me – and create a plan of action.
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