A few weeks ago my friend Chris sent me an e-mail containing a link to this discussion. It is a condition that I share with many other people in the world and not just a conversation starter. And I say “condition” because I don’t think it can be exclusively hindering to a person or the society if handled properly.
First things first, what is “idea overflow”? Interestingly enough there is no entry about it on wikipedia so the following definition is my own. “Idea overflow” is a condition where a person keeps having a constant stream of ideas – new or old ones – on his mind without being able to finish or develop any of them – fast enough or even at all – and thus becomes unable to contain that stream of ideas to a bearable limit. And if the definition didn’t help you enough let’s just say that “idea overflow” is what made me pause twice while typing this, so I could create a couple of drafts that hopefully will later become future blog articles and what is now making me consider whether I should implement a voting system where readers would vote on the next draft that want completed.
Taking myself as an example you can see why this condition can either be hindering or very welcome if handled properly. Sure it did take me a bit back from finishing the current piece and I certainly needed to take that time off to note my ideas down, otherwise they would still be taking some of my focus away from this. On the other hand though they were a couple, as in two new ideas that happened somewhere in the world, which at the bare minimum would be described as progress.
So the solution is simple: “finish posts faster than you think of new ones”. While that might be the obvious solution it unfortunately isn’t a feasible, let alone a good one. Taking my new posts inspiration as an example does not compare to the magnitude of other demanding ideas that might need a lot of time, money, dedication or multiple workers in order to be developed. My example also fails at presenting the excitement that follows a groundbreaking idea that might change the world, or the tempting hypothetical profit that another might bring if implemented successfully.
And that last part is what is – at least for me – the hardest part of it. It is not the flow of ideas that is the hindering part, that one I actually find very pleasing and welcome. It can easily be enjoyed – or “remedied” according to others – by finding a way to note the ideas down, a blog, a text file, a notepad, a portable recorder. What is actually the hard part is that usually those that have a constant stream of ideas go so much further than noting them down.
After the idea is briefly taken off someone’s mind there comes a time when the idea resurfaces and occupies the mind again. And this time is not just like the first one, but much more intense and persistent. “How will this be implemented?”, “Is it something the world really needs?”, “Can I make profit off that?”, “How long will it take to finish?”, “How much will it cost?”, “How will I find people to invest on this?”, “Who will program the thousands of lines of code that are needed?”.
It is this major gap between conception and development initiation that takes the biggest toll. The idea was first conceived, then noted down and what naturally comes next is the need for the idea to be developed. It can’t be stopped. It sure can be delayed, but not stopped. It is otherwise wasted potential or a dream that is not coming true. The need for the idea to be developed is powered by almost the same things that gave birth to it to begin with, whether that is a wish to change the world or pure greediness, so in the majority of cases the conceiver will reach this haunting step.
And that was all for a single idea! Escalate all of the above to the stream of ideas and this is where things become even scarier. The ideas are so many to begin with, that the possible scenarios for each one are beyond unmanageable. Even choosing a single idea to dedicate oneself to is often very hard for those people if not completely out of the question, as stated by many of them. So how can one cope with all this?
Googling will give you many results just like the discussion linked in the beginning. I will not be commenting on these though and that is for two reasons. Firstly those solutions and workarounds usually depend on the person’s will to force themselves to ignore or adopt something to deal with their condition. I find it hard to believe that the persons can become so strong-willed in implementing those methods but not strong-willed enough to deal with other parts of the condition in the first place (for example not being strong-willed enough to choose one idea and stick solely to it). I’m not saying those methods don’t help people, I just don’t like how they seem to act more like placebos than real solutions.
Second and most important reason is the fact that I am a big fan of tackling a problem with a broader people base in mind, even if sometimes my way of thinking seems utopian. I hinted at it earlier but let’s take it from the beginning. “Idea overflow” as in “too many ideas” or “too many probably wasted chances of progress” as in “bad management of chances of progress” as in “bad control over chances of progress”. Why can’t we control the stream of ideas? Not individually, but to a greater extent? Why can’t we choose among ideas? Why not develop not all of them but some of them? Even if we could get just a small portion of them under development we would still have taken a great evolutionary step forward. So why not aim for that?
Well for starters not every thinker is a doer. The thinkers VS doers categorization is very simple and true. As another friend of mine said when discussing the subject, we (electrical and computer engineers) are on the lucky end of the stick since we usually have the skills needed to turn an idea into a project, but we might not often realize that we’re only a very small minority.
Most people would just see an apple falling to the ground, only a few might think of something more than what their eyes saw and only a portion of them would have the required skills to evolve the idea they got from such a simple phenomenon to laws of physics that would dominate scientists’s view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.
And yet the answer seems as simple as ever: delegation and specialization, assign each idea to a person that has the required skills to accomplish it. It does sound right and brilliant, but is it feasible? It can be, but then it would become a solution to a single person’s problem. Let’s say I had an idea for an android project that also demanded very good knowledge of image recognition. Instead of planning and studying and wasting lots of time doing it myself I could just contact two people that I know are good at each idea requirement and start a project together to finish my idea. Do I hear “problem solved”? Well, yes, my problem is solved. But what about their time? Their ideas that still remain undeveloped? What’s in it for them? Would I trade my expertise on another area for one of their future projects? Don’t they deserve a share of the profits?
The only way to have such a – practically business – relationship is establishing a firm deal between the people involved beforehand. Something like a contract. And what I just described is a startup company that devotes sources to ideas and delivers final products, the exact solution I wanted to avoid.
Why is there no other way to develop ideas unless we fully commit to them so that they become profitable enough to economically sustain every person involved in the making? Nowadays it’s not just about the lack of knowledge, but also about the lack of time. And time is indeed money. No one would commit time to a project that wouldn’t have profit for them and I am not referring to just money. Even when funds or profit exist specialists can be very hard to find. So there must be something else we are missing – other than time.
Maybe it’s the initial approach that is wrong after all. The hypothesis “all/many ideas must be developed to solve the overflow hindrance and achieve progress” led us to the conclusion “make company/group of people with business relationship and form the idea in a way that sustains those workers”. So people with ideas, fighting over limited resources, in order to develop some of them that hopefully bring more to the table than just profit for the developers. What if we try to turn this around a bit?
I present to you an idea that has been occupying my mind for some time now. I initially wasn’t planning on releasing it to the public but instead of just thinking about it maybe something would be done if presented publicly, either scratching it or someone seeing the genius of me and successfully copying and developing it – or so I wish. I call it “the kickstarter killer”.
We create a website/platform that supports multiple users. Users are able to log in and save their ideas. They can then choose the levels of privacy they want their ideas to have so other users can view, rate, comment or contact the creator for a possible partnership on developing it. Instead of having thinkers searching for doers like crazy to develop not necessarily great ideas, we can have a “wishlist of ideas” that doers/developers would want to be a part of. And thus we have great ideas, based on what people really want or need, developed rapidly, no marketing gimmicks, not trying to convince investors for future success. It is truly a masterpiece of an idea, one that will probably never be made.
There are so many things wrong with it as are good. Trust issues, fear of patent trolls, need of some form of legal support, or even better full temporary patent support to every user for each idea submitted until it is developed. There are workarounds and solutions for the above but even then, it’s such a great project to undertake that I can’t say for sure I will ever be up to it, not alone anyways. Which brings me to my true and final point.
The solution to many of our problems: understanding that we are not – to a great extent – superhuman, just plain old humans. We won’t get to live all our dreams and we won’t be able to develop all our ideas. This doesn’t mean that we should stop dreaming or noting down those ideas, or trying to achieve both. But we have to make choices and be realistic.
Those dealing with “idea overflow” are like children in a candy shop. They want everything in there but they can’t have it. So they have to chose the one candy that appeals most to them at that moment. If they can’t choose one then they are not fit to eat all the candies anyway, because they have to start from somewhere, or maybe they can’t choose because every candy is not as good as it seemed at first after all.
Maybe one day the conditions and tools will be much more favorable for mass developing ideas, more people will be both thinkers and doers, or people might have an actual saying on what they truly want developed. Until then though even pessimistic me can’t deny that we are not in such a bad spot as we usually tend to think. We can’t always get what we want. If we could life wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
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