A–Z: A simple creativity technique

You want to prepare yourself for a new topic? The following association exercise which I found in Vera F. Birkenbihl’s book Das innere Archiv 1 can get your juices flowing.

  1. Take a piece of paper.
  2. Write a short title for the topic on top.
  3. Create a column of all the letters in the alphabet:
TOPIC

A
B
C
…
Z
  1. Start a timer for 3 minutes.
  2. Go down the column and write down as many associations to the topic as you can starting with the letter in the current row.
  3. Don’t think. Write.

Here are my first entries for ideation:

IDEATION

A association, awareness, attention, alarm, answers (questions)
B business, best practice, beer
C chemistry, creativity, chaos, chunking
…
Z zest, 'z'erious

The trick is to really write down what comes to mind, don’t hold yourself back even if not on topic. Judging comes later.

Give it a try, it only takes 3 minutes. You can print this A-Z template, and the topic you can use is FUN.

References

  1. Vera F. Birkenbihl. 2005. Das innere Archiv. (2. Auflage). GABAL, Offenbach ↩