Are you peeling and cooking potatoes one by one?

When solving problems, most people grab onto one idea, test it and if it fails they start all over again. This is like peeling and cooking potatoes one by one. It’s obviously slow and a complete waste of time and energy.

Instead peel all the potatoes (or generate multiple ideas) before you start cooking. By batching your creativity you will have multiple alternatives to draw on if one doesn’t work.

Here are some examples of great thinkers who have done this:

Shakespeare wrote multiple plays each year never waiting for the “perfect” idea.

Leonardo da Vinci has 20,000 to 28,000 pages of notes, sketches and ideas that filled 50 notebooks. He wrote an average of 3 pages a day until age 67.

Thomas Edison left behind five million pages of notes and designs.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group controls more than 400 businesses. He always carries a notebook to capture thoughts and ideas.

None of them waited for the perfect idea but they did create libraries of possibilities.

You can do the same.

• Give yourself time to collect a broad range of ideas before focusing on one.

• Keep a notebook and record even the bad ideas.

• Revisit old projects. A past failure or an idea that didn’t seem like it would go anywhere might spark a new solution.

By building your own library of ideas, you'll have a richer base to draw from.