The biggest breakthrough I’ve had for writing a new 4,000 word podcast script every week started with a quote I read by David Ogilvy in one of his books on advertising:

“Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.”

The basic idea, as I took it, is that if you cram your brain full of interesting stuff and then let that interesting stuff simmer, eventually it’ll coalesce into something useful. So I’d read a ton, walk Rubes in Central Park, and, eventually, I’d have an idea for the pod that I ran with.

Read interesting stuff → “Unhook” and walk around

That method works fine, but along the way I found a better sequence.

Come up with a podcast topic → Read interesting stuff → “Unhook” and walk around

At some point I realized that if I started with a podcast topic, then read every morning and walked around in the afternoon, my brain was 100x better at making connections. And, those connections would continue to happen until I hit publish on that podcast episode. I’d be in the shower or waiting for the subway or on line for a coffee and a fully formed thought would pop into my mind.

I’m sure the shower / subway / coffee idea has happened to you, too.

What I realized (and soon learned that, like, millions of people already knew), is that your subconscious works incredibly well when you give it a clear task and then leave that task open-ended.

It’s called the [**Zeigarnik Effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect?utm_source=Sunday Member Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Tacklebox Member Sunday Email - 09.22.24 - Give Your Subconscious a Job (01J8B4TYBK4JD0D154J6J531V5)&_kx=1Cb1nvA010kJZ-V4YbY3sA.WP7EzA#:~:text=In psychology%2C the Zeigarnik effect,tasks better than completed tasks.).**