My biggest problem is I always have too many ideas in my head. Most of the time, I write them down and wait to see if they return.

Often times, I will give them away to people who are working on similar things, even when it’s a great one I want to get to someday, took me a long time to come to terms with this. I firmly believe now that being a facilitator of ideas is far more important than keeping them to yourself. This just reaffirms why I believe more ideas come to me lately.

Idea generation is a ton of fun in a room with a whiteboard, no doubt. But I’ve learned doing PlebLab for these many years it's much better to bring thought-out ideas to the surface before this, especially if it's something new.

Let me explain…

Lately, I have been trying to think through this idea I have had for a year, initially last year, when I would think about it, I couldn't visualize it. It stumped me; the longer I thought about it, it bothered me. It also wasn’t an idea that I know I needed to do because it was “a nice to have.” So I shelved it in my head. Had someone came up to me during that time with a similar idea I would have gave it to them to do. But it never happened.

However, late last year, when I was listening to the advice of a lot of new people that came into my life, I began taking what they were telling me at face value. Because it was something I heard before, just said different.

Again, I went back to looking at this idea again. With new information and time passing, I can now visualize how it will look in my head and possibly play out in a few different scenarios without backstops...now in March, it is starting to feel right as things have just naturally fallen into place for this idea to come to life. Again will see only time will tell, thing is not to force things with ideas. Let it flow naturally.

So to recap three things I've learned when coming up with ideas before shelving them.

This is important when optimizing for understanding if it's the right time. Let it flow. God will always naturally guide you to the place your supposed to be.

This will help so much when having to explain to others and give you some peace of mind. But ultimately it’s good to have the data to back up a lot of the “flow state” process. Aquinas often used the metaphor of a two-story building to illustrate this concept. I’ve written more about it here.

This one I just learned to trust more and more especially in the last year. I used to avoid big ideas that did this to me, but now, not so much.

Before going through with any idea talk about it with people who want to help you tear it down while it’s still in a dream state. It’s the only way to see if the idea is firmly planted in your mind. This will be helpful when you finally go through with it.

Hope this helps, honestly this is the stuff me and @k00b talk about all the time.

I use everything I see and do as source for any type of idea, most of my relax time is me daydreaming, I've never thought of using anything like a framework.

What I do is simply to have a collection of notes somewhere, my own is stored as text files in a folder called "ideabox" and I write everything that comes to mind without structure, then the only "context" I add is a set of specific words for whatever I want to achieve with said note.

For example (feel free to steal them):

App idea: A to-do app that share your private to-do list publicly, if the tasks are not completed before a time limit.

Game idea: Receptionist RPG, a game where instead of being the protagonist of an adventure, you are the one who gives the quests.

All my notes have a title that gives a category somehow, so if I want to look for some older ideas, I just search for "App", "Game", "Story" or whatever I tracked or else, I just go back and dig them randomly for some great mixups.

Didn't know about SCAMPER.

I did not go through all the details of the method, but it seems to align with my core belief that creativity is rooted in a thorough understanding of what already exists. You can only make creative and unexpected links if you have solid blocks to build with. Most of my most impactful research and current high-impact publications build on years of previous development of computational tools. Of course, I cannot claim Nobel-prize worthy results, but many Nobel prizes are just the culmination of many years of preliminary work by other researchers in the world.

And to bring it back to Bitcoin, Satoshi's main contribution was to bring together years of previous disparate ideas going around in the Cyberphunk world into one coherent product that is Bitcoin. That's one of the reasons I believe Satoshi must be someone who was already active in the field before.

the best framework to come up with creative ideas? GET BORED!?!