A daily 20-idea brainstorm ignites unstoppable creativity

When soft-drink giant 7UP hit a slump, the marketing team felt stuck. On day one, they wrote “How do we excite teens again?” at the top of a whiteboard. One engineer suggested selling it in cans painted by local street artists. Another pitched a dance app sponsorship. Soon they had thirty wild ideas.

The secret was simple: by forcing themselves past the first dozen, predictable answers, they stumbled on literal gold—“Make It Yours.” Customers could design their own seven-color labels online. Overnight it went viral.

The 20-Idea Method works because your brain is hungry for novelty. When you push it beyond the easy solutions, you unlock deeper connections between data you already know. It’s like mining for nuggets you never knew were there.

Best of all, you don’t need a boardroom—just a notepad and ten minutes. Every new idea plants a seed for a breakthrough. Done daily, the process becomes a super-charger for your creativity.

Pick one question you need solved—your biggest goal or pain point—and write it at the top of a blank page. Then spend ten minutes listing twenty answers, no matter how outlandish. Finally, circle your favorite idea and act on it right away—send that email, sketch that prototype, or pitch it to a colleague. That single step breaks you free from routine thinking, so give it a go before tomorrow’s first coffee.