WEEK 29 - My simple, no-fail formula for coming up with ideas!
Hey there, thanks for joining us for Week 29 of HOMwork 2020!
(I'm in deeeeeep work mode since Passion to Paid is re-launching on July 28th, so this is a re-work of one of the most popular assignments from over a year ago!)
I'll get straight to the point: my favorite formula for coming up with interesting ideas for my work is:
Taking
something I’m passionate about in my personal life
and combining it with
a skill I want to hone in my professional life
This usually takes the form of a passion project, like Daily Dishonesty, Will Letter for Lunch or my most recent WTF Should I Letter.
Because of this, people often ask me, "How do I come up with a good idea for a project? Where do I even start?"
My advice?
It’s called a passion project, so start with what YOU (as a person, not a professional) are passionate about. Don’t worry about what you think you *should* be passionate about—instead focus on what actually excites you!
In honor of Passion to Paid re-opening for enrollment soon (and 20 scholarships being up for grabs!), this week's prompt is inspired by a brainstorming exercise I have my students do in the class.
Make a list of all your favorite things, interests, and hobbies OUTSIDE of your professional creative work.
Make another list of your professional creative skills (but only the ones that you really enjoy). For example, if you know how to design websites but don't actually like doing that kind of work, don't add it to the list.
From there, pick one from each list and see how many combinations you can make. You can even go wild and pick three. The combos can seem random, but they'll give you a starting point to brainstorm ideas. For me, it always comes back to snacks, pep talks and lettering...
Your assignment: Create something that incorporates a snack you love & a piece of advice you love!
The advice can be serious, profane, silly, profound, etc. Whatever speaks to you the most right now.
I decided to letter this blunt advice on top of a bowl of my favorite butternut squash soup (recipe here), and I found contrast between the profanity and innocent soup to be quite funny. Pick a piece of advice and try asking yourself, "Which of my favorite snacks would this be the most interesting/surprising/clever with?"
Caption idea: Tell us where this piece of advice came from; a mentor, your best friend, skywriting? And tell us a story about your favorite snack + why you decided to pair it with this advice.
Make sure to use the hashtag #HOMwork2020 and tag me @homsweethom so I can see all the great advice. I'll be sharing my faves in my Stories all week!
x Lauren
P.S. The definition of a snack is a light meal eaten in between main meals. If client work/full-time work is considered the main meal, then passion projects are definitely the snacks! In addition to delicious crunchy snacks, I think we all need to have lots of creative snacks. Passion projects, breaks to rest, hobbies, etc. Anything that makes you feel blissful that you do for yourself :)
