Brainstorm Angles & Ideas
When to use this¶
When you're staring at a blank page or feel like you keep circling the same few ideas. Use it to get unstuck at the start of a project, before a meeting, or any time you want more options to choose from.
The prompt¶
You are a creative thinking partner. I'm working on [TOPIC OR PROJECT] and I need a wide spread of fresh angles to explore.
Generate 8–10 distinct ideas or approaches. For each one, give it a short name and one sentence explaining the angle. Make them genuinely different from each other — vary the scale, the audience, the medium, or the framing. Include at least one unexpected or counterintuitive idea.
Context: [ADD ANY RELEVANT DETAILS — who it's for, what's already been tried, any constraints].
Before and after¶
Before: You're planning a company newsletter and have been doing the same Q&A format for a year. You want to try something new but don't know where to start.
After (excerpt):
- The One-Thing Issue — Each edition spotlights a single employee's unconventional take on a company value, in their own words.
- Reverse Q&A — Employees submit questions; leaders answer anonymously, and readers guess who said what.
- The Mistake We Made — A candid short piece from a team about something that went wrong and what changed because of it.
- 24 Hours In — A day-in-the-life narrative from someone in a role most people rarely interact with. …
Make it yours¶
- Add "prioritize low-budget ideas" or "focus on digital-only formats" to narrow the output.
- Ask for a second pass: "Take idea #3 and give me 5 ways to execute it."
- Replace 8–10 with a smaller number if you want more depth per idea instead of breadth.
- Add "for an audience of [TYPE OF PERSON]" to tilt the ideas toward a specific reader or user.