marginalize jottings or possibilities on the ideas sheet which are
not really relevant, or which will not work as you wish. (But
since it’s also easy to be too self-critical, cross things out lightly,
so you can still read what’s there.) Then think about how to
organize or sequence the remaining ideas, using graphic devices
(boxes, lines, arrows etc.) to structure your ideas sheet. As you
make progress, take the skeleton of one subset of ideas and
expand it onto further ideas sheets of its own, seeing if you can
flesh out and expand what you have got.
Jotting thoughts down whenever you have them is a second
seemingly obvious but actually crucial aspect of increasing your
creativity. Nothing is so evanescent as your own good ideas, so
fleetingly present and so easily lost. One of the most famous
social psychology articles sheds light on this issue, focusing on
‘the magical number seven, plus or minus two’.^24 Empirical
research shows that on average we can all of us hold only about
seven ideas at the forefront of our attention. Very clever people
are perhaps able to focus on nine ideas at once, while less adept
people (like me) may only be able to concentrate on five ideas
at a time. When we are confronted by larger sets or longer lists
of ideas we tend to react by randomlydropping some elements
from the forefront of our attention. Hence if you think of a lot
of ideas withoutjotting them down, you may appropriately be
anxious that you will forget them.
The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of
ideas.
Linus Pauling^25
There is no such thing as a logical method of
having new ideas or a logical reconstruction
of this process.
Karl Popper^26One way we normally counter this fear of forgetting is to
keep recycling the same seven (or five or nine) things in the
forefront of our attention, the repetitions serving to reassure us
that the original notions are still there, still retrievable. The
more stressed we get (often without noticing it) the more we
may repeat this operation, squeezing out having any new ideas.
To get new ideas you need to break out of this cycle of anxiety
ENVISIONING THE THESIS AS A WHOLE◆ 35