Brain Vomiting

I am an office supply store Junky!  Something about buying new pens and new pads of paper increases my heart rate and motivates me.  I can't tell you how many leather bound journals and pens I have purchased....  This week I was convinced by one of my mentors to buy a nice fountain pen.  He wrote a book about how personal letters can make all the difference in business and in life.  So I bought one (I am embarrased to say how much it cost me!).  But In all honesty it has paid for itself already!

With my new fancy pen in hand, I decided to just let my thoughts spill out onto paper about a number of different subjects.  In some cases I just started writing and the rule was that I could not stop to think about what I was jotting down.  With this continual vomiting of ideas onto paper I ended up solving some of the problems I was having at work, found a great new marketing idea, and solved a personal problem that I have been struggling with.  

I have done this exercise a few times in my life but should probably do it more often.  Have you ever tried brainstorming on a computer screen?  It is difficult...because we don't think left to right in our heads all of the time.  Our mind works like a search engine and recalls information that sometimes appears unrelated on first glance.  If we let our concious mind filter our thoughts then we often hamper our creative problem solving ability.

Are you struggling with a problem or stuck in a rut.  Get a nice pen and a fresh sheet of paper and let your ideas pour out onto the page in the form of continuous writing, mind maps, pictures, random thoughts, etc.  You can organize your thoughts into usable information later.  But sometimes you need the creativity that comes with Chaos to find the problem.  

Does anyone have any good experiences or insights into this method of problem solving?  I would love to hear about them if you do.