Post-It Note Wall Brainstorming Process

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My boyfriend and I both run our own businesses as content creators. We’ve always been close thought partners as creatives and bouncing ideas off of each other has always been fun but during quarantine we took our brainstorming partnership to the next level. Before February 2020, we would typically come to each other with ideas that were already half-baked, but now we start with empty post-it notes, sharpies, and a blank wall.

Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey with brainstorming or a seasoned expert, I hope this breakdown helps spark some new ideas or ways to approach ideas.

How we stick to it…

We started off strong with blocking off an hour on Sunday nights to fill up the wall with new ideas or goals for the week. Over the last two months or so, we’re less committed to updating it weekly and more to using it as a launching pad for all the other work streams we have. We have buckets that we’re committed to consistently pouring into and having those on the wall help us understand where our conversations should be anchored in. If it’s on the wall, it’s worth our time. If it isn’t on the wall, we ask - does it belong on the wall or do we have to learn to let go of pouring energy into it?

Creating a system that has evolved with us is the key to sticking to it. I’ve gone through so many planners, apps, and notebooks that were meant to be spaces to hold my ideas and that I never really committed to. I got bored easily. This wall concept though is something that we’ll be taking with us to our next home.

How to start…

Choose a blank wall of any size as your holy space for colorful post-it notes. On the first post-it note write this, “I’m scared to put down ideas, but that won’t stop me.”

We don’t have that post-it note on the wall, but after months of doing it I’ve realized I should. Fear is the one inhibitor to writing down anything. It feels audacious to commit your ideas, your wildest dreams, your “I know I can do this” goals on paper. We often don’t feel deserving of holding ourselves to such wild standards, which is why I’m telling you that you are, that you should, and that for the sake of your own growth and self-worth you need to.

On our wall over the last few months there have been road maps to check off the following:

  • Finishing a book proposal

  • Redesigning a blog

  • Hitting 50k on YouTube

  • Stopping bad self-talk

  • Posting consistently on IG

  • Increasing cookie consumption

I’m proud to report that we’ve managed to work towards all of these, but I don’t know how capable we would have felt we were if we hadn’t been bold enough to write it down first.

Starting questions and mantras

This wall is tangled up with our self-worth, what we prioritize, and how capable we deem ourselves to dream big and act on those dreams. It’s helped center us on what matters. When I started noticing that I was giving in to the ease of workaholism during quarantine, I started putting notes up that said things like “Call this friend” or “Play with Chauncey” so that I understood that the wall was meant for more than a measure of productivity, it was a measure of how delightful, creative, and fulfilling we wanted our lives to be.

I know getting started can be rough, whether you’re doing this alone or with a thought partner, here are some places to start:

  • What parts of your life are you consistently pouring into? Turn those into column headers on your wall.

  • What goals can you work towards this week to help build up that dream? Place those under their corresponding columns

  • What wild dreams do you have percolating in your mind that you’ve been too afraid to say out loud? Make those into their own little square of dreams that you can turn to often as your True North.

For every time that this feels too bold or too vast for you to be doing in your living room or bedroom, remember this — you will only ever be able to live up to the goals you think you’re capable of achieving, are you setting that bar too low for yourself?

The key to this process is to rinse and repeat. It doesn’t have to look the same every week, but the wall should become a habit of some sort. It’s our “positive thinking, we can live up to the best version of ourselves” reminder. Hopefully it can be yours too.