Finding the right idea

By 1997, Bruce Springsteen had over 350 recorded but unpublished songs. The Boss always had so many ideas that he had to work at focusing on a small subset of them whenever he released a new album. This principle might be thought of as Find Them, rather than Find It. You need to find enough of “them” in order to get the right “it.”

So be an idea generator, and record them all. Talk about them and mull them over. Then set aside most of them and focus on the best one.