100 Ideas Method
Updated 2026-08-08
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The method requires producing a large fixed number of ideas, commonly one hundred, for a single problem. The premise is that early ideas are the most accessible and therefore the most conventional, that the middle stretch is uncomfortable because obvious combinations run out, and that genuinely novel options appear only after the stock of familiar answers is spent. The count is deliberately unreasonable, since a comfortable target can be met with existing material.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Use Absurd Quota: choose a count large enough that the first thirty cliched ideas cannot fill it. - Use Suspended Judgment: record every idea without evaluating any until the quota is met. - Use Tail Mining: review the final forty ideas, where the genuine breakthroughs appear.
Anchor fast decisions
Retrieval follows the paths most strongly associated with the problem, so the first answers are the most familiar ones. Those associations must be exhausted before less accessible combinations become reachable. A quota forces the search past the comfortable stopping point where most people accept the first acceptable idea.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100verified
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