Alright, so, let’s talk about this Diana Benedict thing I tried out a while back. I’d hit a wall, a real creative block on this one project, you know? The usual staring-at-the-ceiling wasn’t cutting it. Someone, I think it was Dave from the old office, mentioned this “Diana Benedict” approach. He was all hyped up about it, like it was some kind of magic bullet for ideas.
So, I figured, why not? Couldn’t be worse than the blank page mocking me. I looked it up. Or rather, I tried to. There wasn’t a ton of super clear stuff, mostly forum posts and some vague articles. Seemed like one of those “interpret it your own way” kind of deals, which always makes me a bit wary. But the gist I got was about breaking down your thinking into these super specific, almost rigid, steps. Not my usual style, I like to let things flow, or, well, panic until something appears.
The first step, as I understood it, was this weird thing where you had to list, like, fifty completely unrelated words. Fifty! I sat there for a good hour just trying to come up with random words. “Spoon,” “galaxy,” “pickle,” “existentialism.” My brain felt like it was doing mental gymnastics it hadn’t signed up for. It was supposed to “clear the mental palate,” or something fancy like that. Mostly, it just made me crave a pickle.
Then, there was this part about associating these random words with the actual problem I was trying to solve. This is where it got really… interesting. Trying to connect “pickle” to a new marketing strategy for a software company? Yeah, that was a trip. I spent an afternoon drawing these crazy mind maps, lines going everywhere, looking like a spider had a party on my notepad. My desk was a mess of scribbled notes and eraser dust.
Did it work? Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I did get some… unique ideas. Stuff I definitely wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. One idea involving a giant inflatable pickle mascot, for instance. The client probably would’ve thought I’d lost my mind. But buried in all that nonsense, there were a couple of tiny nuggets that weren’t completely terrible. Stuff I could actually polish up a bit.
But here’s the thing: the whole process felt incredibly forced. Like I was trying to squeeze creativity out of a rock. My usual method, which is basically controlled chaos and a lot of coffee, feels more natural, even if it’s stressful. This Diana Benedict thing, it was structured, sure, but it also felt… restrictive. Maybe I wasn’t “doing it right,” whatever “right” means for such a fuzzy concept. Dave said you had to “trust the process.” I trust my gut more, usually.
So, will I be using the full Diana Benedict method again? Probably not. It took way too much time for the payoff I got. It’s like those fancy exercise machines people buy, use twice, and then they just gather dust. I might pinch a tiny bit of it, maybe the random word association if I’m truly, desperately stuck. But the whole ritual? Nah. I’ll stick to my old ways. Sometimes, the tried and true, even if it’s a bit messy, just works better for some folks. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience for fifty random words before breakfast.
