When I was a young man attending a religious junior college, I took a “preaching 101” class. The teacher suggested that the best way to prepare a weekly sermon was to research a topic early in the week, then do nothing with it for at least a day or two.
He said that while you ignored it, your “sub” as he called it would work on the raw material you’d input into your brain. When you returned to it, you’d likely already have a rough sermon outline you could put the finishing touches on. He was right.
That was my first introduction to the concept of idea incubation. In the past 50 years since that class, I’ve used this technique for developing ideas and projects. It’s the method I use to develop and write these blog posts.
The idea incubation process is a method for developing ideas and projects. It involves giving the subconscious mind time to work on the raw material input into the brain before returning to it to develop a rough outline.
Why Incubate Ideas as a Part of the Creative Process?
1. Incubating ideas fits the way our minds are designed to work. Our minds are designed to work in the background to make sense of what we feed it, to bring order and relationships out of chaos. It makes the creative process more enjoyable and less stressful.
“Creative thought processes simmer in the background, in associative thinking that connects different regions of our brains…Psychologists refer to this unseen creative boost as the incubation effect.” Anne Janzer, Schedule Incubation Time for Your Ideas.
Our subconscious minds are designed to work in the background when we’re not directly focused on a project. Often, because of the associative thinking that takes place, we come up with understandings that we likely wouldn’t have if we’d just done a one-pass approach to researching and writing a post.
It’s not a process we control — it just happens. However, it is a process we can intentionally plan for and initiate.
2. It makes the creative process more enjoyable and creative, less stressful. When we try to create under time pressure, the creative process becomes work.
However, the whole process becomes more enjoyable when we spread intellectual work over time. “It allows it to be more enjoyable, spontaneous, creative, critical (editing with some distance) etc. But primarily less stress.” Shawn Wang, 10 Principles I Learned from Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain.
Valuable insights seem to sprout by themselves during the incubation process. This process of unconscious thought and organization fuels the truly creative aspect of writing.
The 3 Phases of the Incubation Process
Anne Janzer is an award-winning author and nonfiction writing coach on a mission to help people make a positive impact with their writing. Her book, The Writer’s Process, has won numerous awards and is considered one of the best books on writing skills.
She considers the Incubation Process to be a key to writing success. In her article, Schedule Incubation Time for Your Ideas,Janzer discusses the 3 phases of the Incubation Process:
Phase 1 — Priming the incubation process;
Phase 2 — Incubating (the fun part!); and
Phase 3 — Working with the results.
We’ll discuss each of these phases in turn.
Phase 1 — Priming the Incubation Process
Getting My Initial Thoughts Down
I initially prime the process by jotting down the topic and my initial thoughts about it when I first record the topic project in my “blog post ideas” folder in Craft. Typically, these will be bullet points listing what I already know about a topic and areas I want to do further research on.
Depending on the nature of my thoughts, I might place some points under others as a form of preliminary organization. If I’ve obtained this idea from a quotation in a Readwise highlight, I’ll copy the formatted highlight into the idea project document. I might use this as the featured image for my completed blog post.
At this initial stage, a topic project typically goes on the back burner until I’m ready to turn it into an active writing project. If I think it’s a hot topic and want to write a blog post and publish it soon, I’ll continue the incubation process to the next step.
Transferring to an Outliner or Mind Map
As I plan for a future blog post, I scan my list of topics. When I select the topic to become an active writing project, I take my initial thoughts and copy and paste them into the outline view of a new MindNode file. I’ll switch to the mind map view, and start some initial organizing by dragging nodes around and creating new nodes.
I use MindNode at this stage because I find using a mind map, with its graphical representation of ideas, to be more functional and creative for me than using a traditional linear outline. See my post, Everything I Do Starts With Mind Mapping. I also create a bidirectional link between my Craft project document with my MindNode file using the Hookmark app.
An outlining app like OmniOutliner or Zavala can be used if you’re more comfortable using a traditional outliner.
Researching
Once I’ve created my MindNode file, I do some basic research on my topic. I typically use:
- A web search of the terms related to my topic. This often leads me to articles or blog posts that help me understand the parameters and questions around my topic.
If I find an interesting quote I think I might use, I’ll copy the quotation, the author, and the citation into my MindNode file at the appropriate location. When I’m writing, if I decide to include the quote I can drag the information into my word processor. - A search of my personal databases in Craft and DevonThink. Frequently I’ll discover I already have resources relevant to the topic that I collected in the past and forgot about.
- A ChatGPT or Craft AI Assistant search for the topic. I can ask AI to write a blog post, an outline, or a summary of the topic.
Typically, this produces a very helpful outline of the topic, making me aware of aspects I hadn’t considered before. I don’t copy and paste this material into my post, but use it to inform my research and direct my thoughts. - If the post idea is based on a Readwise highlight from a book I’ve read, I’ll read the sections in the book before and after the quotation. By doing this, I get a better sense of what an author is talking about, and there is often other supporting material on the same topic in the quote context.
Phase 2 — The Incubation Process
• To use the incubation process at its greatest effect, I start my project as early as possible, not right before (or on) the due date. It’s important I allow time to get my initial thoughts down, do some research, and allow time for the process to work.
• The key is to do some initial research and thinking, then walk away from it and do something dissimilar. While I’m away from my project, my mind will continue to work on the project, making connections and organizing thoughts.
• I also find myself coming up with new thoughts as I read or listen to other sources. I see how these relate to my project. When this happens, I go to my mind map and record my thoughts, so I don’t forget them.
• It’s good practice for me to make periodic short visits to my mind map. It seems like every time I do so, I have new thoughts to record or I rearrange the organization of my mind map because I see new relationships between my thoughts. These visits don’t need to be long — 5 or 10-minute visits can be very productive.
• Another benefit to using an incubation period is that it gives me some “objectivity distance” between edits of my outline or mind map. I can be much more objective in evaluating my work when I’ve left it alone for periods of time.
Phase 3 — Working with the Results of Idea Incubation
If I’ve primed the pump and periodically revisited my mind map to make additions or organizational changes during the incubation period, I find that I have a substantially complete mind map when I’m ready to complete the project by writing the post.
When I’m close to beginning writing the post, I’ll block time to focus on the mind map. I’ll fill in logical gaps and add supporting thoughts, and do any reorganization I think appropriate.
When I’m satisfied with the mind map, I’m ready to begin writing. I place my word processor, Ulysses, on the left side of my computer screen, and my MindNode mind map on the right. As I write, I follow my mind map to ensure I include all of my thoughts and don’t leave anything else.
See my post, How I Use Ulysses, Craft & MindNode to Write & Publish Blog Posts.
Writing Made Less Stressful and More Thoroughly Prepared
By allowing adequate time to use the idea incubation process, I experience much less stress when I write the post. Instead of facing the blinking cursor on the blank page, I have a guide (my mind map) to take my hand and lead me through the process. I have a road map to follow as I write.
More Time is Better, but Any Amount of Time for Incubation is Helpful
It’s possible to profitably use the idea incubation process even if I don’t have a lot of advance time. But the more time I allow, the better the results.
While I prefer at least a week, I have used it within just one or two days. I’ve found that any space I can provide between the stages of priming the pump and finalizing my mind map and writing can improve my work and reduces stress.
Any incubation period helps, even if it’s as short as a long walk, a workout at the gym, or focusing on another project for an hour or two. Anything that gives your mind the time and space to work on the project.
The Idea Incubation Process Works With Any Type of Project, Not Just Writing
While the idea incubation process works great with writing projects, it will work for any project, particularly in the planning process. My experience is that time spent thinking about how a project will be approached and implemented always pays off during the implementation phase.
I’ve used this process to plan Keynote presentations to groups, plan a big anniversary trip to Disneyland for my wife and me, plan productivity workflows, and compare apps. I also use it anytime I need to make a big decision, including making decisions about moving to a new location. Giving the planning process some time to incubate makes the thought process much more effective.
Give the Idea Incubation Process a Try!
If you haven’t used the Idea Incubation Process in the past, I suggest you give it a try.
You’ll likely find that it makes the writing process or other processes much easier and more enjoyable. In addition, because you’ve given the idea time to incubate, your thoughts and outline will be finished to a level not possible with a one-time effort.