Mental models for…

8 mental models for creativity & original ideas

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Original ideas come from seeing problems differently. These models break the default framing and open up new ways to think.

  1. First-principles thinking: reason from what's true, not what's assumed

  2. Inversion: solve problems backward by asking how to fail

  3. The map is not the territory

  4. In a complex world, generalists often beat specialists

  5. Flow happens when challenge meets skill

  6. Creative destruction: the new can't arrive without burying the old

  7. Via negativa: improve by removing, not adding

  8. Optionality: keep choices open when the future is uncertain

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