Starting with a blank slate wastes the ideas you’ve already had. [[Lots of inputs and a strong filter]] is the system that makes starting from something possible: if you’ve been capturing and connecting well, you already have raw material. Every brainstorm should begin from a note, a tension, a question written down when you noticed it. The best ideas come from collision, not generation. You need existing material to push against.
[[Non-linear note making]] matters more than the ability to brainstorm well for exactly this reason. If the notes are connected, the session becomes selection and synthesis rather than invention from nothing. The filter is what keeps the pile from becoming noise: intake without selection produces material without the ability to start from it.