Dreams die between idea and execution, especially if the ugly disease of ideaitis1 has befallen you.
The sure sign of an amateur is he has a million plans and they all start tomorrow.—Steven Pressfield
Most of them, as Sturgeon's Law posits, will be wrong. The message might sound disheartening, but it conveys a clear plan to get to the exceptional ideas: weed out the bad ones.
Distilling the knowledge of great scientists and thinkers like Richard W. Hamming and Paul Graham, I propose three simple strategies to triage your ideas.
You are not your research
Acknowledge that having your own ideas feels like runners' high. We start to believe that we have stepped up the game; we are no longer blind followers of the path prescribed by others. And we forget that most self-prescribed directions will be dead-ends. The problem with our ideas is that they are ours; attachment prevents us from seeing their faults.
Do not confuse the jolt of the ownership of the idea with its importance.
This requires zooming out and asking whether this idea will really make a dent in the grand scheme of things—or is the straightforwardness that excites us? I learned this the hard way: my enthusiasm led me to develop extensions to my research without realizing that no one would care. Working on the right thing trumps working hard.
Feedback for fighting the curse of knowledge
A one-person remedy is keeping a healthy distance from your work (advice to a friend). The foolproof way to break the curse of knowledge is to seek advice from a group of trusted peers and mentors. To whet our ideas, we don't need cheerleaders; we need coaches who point out where our ideas fail.
After careful introspection and advice-seeking, the cornucopia of ideas, our cornucopia of ideas, has shrunk to a diminutive size. It feels like dropping a sound grenade right in front of the bed of our inner impostor we were so careful to keep dormant. This is where many of us falter because we don't realize that the test is the remedy! It is a sign of courage to open up and challenge how clever our brainchildren are—who wants to hear that they are ugly?
Is the time ready for our idea?
A problem is important partly because there is a possible attack on it and not just because of its inherent importance.—Richard W. Hamming
Having a great idea is no consolation if the execution fails, though it stresses that
If an idea fails, that does not imply that the idea was wrong. But it is hubris to think that all failed ideas are correct but are missing something.
Give away and do the best of the rest
If you still have too many ideas, the most satisfying strategy is to give most of them away. You won't have the time for all. Since they are whetted, you know they are good. But which one to keep? Enter what I call the haunt filter.
The haunt filter
The passage of time will transform the initial excitement into a more realistic assessment. Most ideas will fade, but some will become recurring spooky guests in our mental palaces2. These guest-ghosts are the ideas you should work on. That is the only way to break the spell. What are you waiting for?
Coming up with way too many ideas
The seeds for this post were born in August 2023, and since I cannot get rid of them, I am writing