Whenever we speak about the volume of ideas needed to achieve a breakthrough, one question inevitably arises: “How do I select from such a vast quantity of ideas?” And while there are all sorts of “systems” and recommendations folks often make about the intersection of feasibility, viability, and desirability, that sort of answer strikes me as just a little too clinical or formulaic, and in a sense belies what should really be the driving motive: curiosity! Excitement! Wonder! What a radically different approach to concept selection in the early stages.

“Are you excited about trying this idea?” If so, you should try it! “Are you curious about what might happen if you did this?“ If so, you should try it! IMHO the sense of excitement and curiosity and possibility is totally lacking in most professional settings, and is a radically different way of approaching the topic of idea selection.

Excitement, curiosity, wonder, possibility are all far more compelling — and honest — ways to approach the question of how to sort through a mountain of material. If your interest isn’t piqued, don’t bother. If you can keep from trying, please do. But if you stumbled across an idea that you just can’t stop wondering about — if you’re excited by the prospect of it living in the world — then give it a try!

This is something I’ve been noodling on for the last few weeks. And just like that — voila! — a fascinating study (“Getting a Grip on Insight”) was just published in Cognition and Emotion whose “results indicate that, not only does the Aha moment predict objective performance, but the intensity of the experience carries additional predictive information beyond the mere presence or absence of the phenomenology.”

In layman’s terms, this means that when we’re working on insight- or creativity-driven problem, the feeling of insight you experience at that “Aha!” moment is itself a meaningful predictor of the likelihood that an idea will solve the problem. And further, the more strongly one feels that feeling, the more likely the solution is to be a good fit!

I’d be curious to hear how others — especially those who have a robust idea generation practice — manage the task of selection.

Click here to subscribe to Paint & Pipette, the weekly digest of these daily posts.