You know that moment in the shower when you suddenly get an excellent idea? That happens when your brain, working away quietly while you’re talking to yourself about what could possibly have compelled you to buy shower gel that smells like a food item, suddenly connects two dots. We say that things just clicked, or fell into place, or any other phrase that suggests we had nothing much to do with the miracle of the shower thought.

But here’s another thought, one your water bill will thank you for: the shower isn’t necessary, and you don’t have to wait for thoughts to happen to you. You can actively get your brain to connect those dots while seated at your desk.

The key is that those connected dots didn’t fall out of thin air; new ideas are just a new connection between two or more things you already knew. So to start coming up with ideas, work through the things you know: write down or doodle all of your assumptions, wild thought and semi-irrelevant comments. Writing them down will get you thinking of more things, and might reveal the pattern – the connection – between them.

And then you’ll have an idea. One much better than food-like shower gels.