It’s a quiet weekend and you’ve got that electricity running through your veins: You feel ready to create, to innovate. Maybe you take a canvas and start painting. Or your canvas happens to be a blank page and you just start writing. Or you put your coding skills to use and start prototyping a cool app.
Whatever it may be, you open that canvas, start painting and there you go… You’re in the zone. After a while the energy wears off and the creative session slowly but surely comes to a halt. You feel the post-creativity buzz and yes: It’s rewarding. But there is nothing else all that worthwhile there! The flowers you painted are nice, but no one will ever look at them unless you become the next Picasso and they happen to be one of your early works. It’s not unique. It’s not… original.
Is there a way to ensure originality when that moment of inspiration strikes? I recommend the 34 Division Approach!
Let’s use an example to put the 34 Division Approach to the test. Let’s say I’m starting this new Substack publication and I need a catchy title. How can I ensure originality?
The 34 Division Approach step by step
The core idea behind this approach is that if we have 8.1 billion people in the world we can split them, for example, by gender and we have two groups of around 4 billion. Then we split them by age above or below 40 and have four subgroups of 2 billion each. Then we divide them by the ability to roll their tongue or not roll their tongue and each group is only a billion big (we can be rough here without an issue). It only takes 33 such generic divisions and we’ll be left with just one person!
So, if we want to identify an individual, we can split the population by roughly half only 33 times and be left with just an individual (it might be 32 times, since 8.1 billion / 2^32 is 1.89, but let’s be redundant as I don’t want to break my head over what a non-integer result means).
Now you’re in front of your blank canvas and you think about what you want to paint. The process has the following steps:
Think that every human in the world is also thinking about what to paint.
You start by dividing that population of 8.1 billion painters by saying, for example: “I want to paint based on something I see vs. something completely from my imagination”. Now you divided the world population of potential painters into two groups of 4 billion each (ok, not exactly 4 billion, but don’t worry: This won’t ruin your painting).
You divide the population 32 more times always trying to make the divisions so that the group you are in intuitively represents 50% or less of the remaining group. So, say you divide the population by people who breathe while painting vs those not who don’t breathe while painting. That’s barely a division if you plan to breathe: At least 99.999% of people do breath while painting.
Once you did 33 divisions write down the magic number 34. And next to number 34 you write your final outcome. Hopefully you like it, because one thing is for sure: It’s original.
An example of the 34 Division Approach in action
I’m starting this Substack newsletter to share various personal (hopefully original - I won’t 34 DA all of them 😁) life insights with you today and I want to make sure I have an original newsletter name that fits my personal criteria.
So let’s start the 34 DA mental experiment: 8.1 billion people on this planet want to start a life insights Substack newsletter and they all are thinking about what name to give it. In order to have a name that is sure to be original, I’ll split the population in 2 subgroups 33 times based on characteristics the Substack newsletter name can have. Whatever comes out after is sure to have an original sound. I am confident that it won’t be something boring and generic like “my lifehacks” or “daily tips for a good life”.
So here we go. I will divide my imaginary population of 8.1 billion Substackers 33 times in the format “name characteristic A vs. name characteristic B”. The first characteristic, so the one to the left of the “vs” is always the one I chose, i.e. the branch that I will divide next.
The newsletter name is in English vs it’s not in English ==> It could be a fancy French name, but let’s keep it in English
It’s a non-phrase name vs a phrase name (a phrase name would be something like “exploring life insights together”, so including a verb)
It does not have a literal productivity element vs it has a literal productivity element (a literal productivity element would be something like “life improvement” in the name)
It’s nonsensical vs it’s not nonsensical ==> I like nonsensical. It doesn’t have to make sense
It sounds melodic vs it doesn’t sound melodic
It inspires quick well-being vs it doesn’t inspire quick well-being (so maybe longer term well-being through hard work)
It has a food-sounding element vs it doesn’t have a food-sounding element
It relates to the notion of nougat of wisdom vs it is unrelated to the notion of nougat of wisdom
The literal “wisdom” element needs to be exchanged vs it doesn’t need to be exchanged ==> Steps like this do get a bit boring for the show, but remember that this is a very private process and each division only has to make sense in your own head
The new replacement word (nougat of [Word]) alludes to wisdom vs it doesn’t allude to wisdom
The new word does not represent a physical object vs it does represent a physical object
The new word is an adjective prior to nougat vs it’s not an adjective ==> so we change from “Nougat of [NOUN]” to “[ADJECTIVE] Nougat”
The new word is a longer, 3+ syllable adjective vs a 1 or 2 syllable adjective
The new word alludes to the malleability of the world around us vs it doesn’t
The new word has some kind of alliteration with nougat vs it doesn’t have an alliteration
The adjective is brainstormed using ChatGPT vs CHatGPT is not used at this stage ==> I asked ChatGPT to suggest 10 words to fill [ADJECTIVE] Nougat where the adjective has a nice alliteration with Nougat and alludes to wisdom. I liked numinous as I never heard that word before
Use “numinous” as the adjective vs don’t use that adjective
Something is missing in numinous nougat vs that name is fine ==> Could stop here, but let’s be redundant, get to 34!
Sacrifice the nougat, as it’s too boring after all vs keep nougat
New word contrasts with numinous vs it sounds similar to numinous like nougat ==> Decided to move towards a contrasting word
The new word is a substance we can consume vs it isn’t
The new word has an element of volatility vs it sounds kind of smooth
The new word has the option to be non-English vs it must be English ==> Old decisions can be unmade! There are no hard rules here
The new word gets stuck in one’s head vs it’s forgettable
The new word is or relates to candor vs it’s unrelated to candor
The working name numinous candor needs something else vs it doesn’t and it’s ready
The word candor will get replacement candidates from ChatGPT vs it won’t ==> ChatGPT produced words like clarity, truth, purity… “Numinous Purity” is sounding way too weird.
The candor replacement word needs to be more physical vs it doesn’t ==> A more physical word with a similar sound is candle
The numinous candle is missing a third word vs stick to two words
The third word should be less metaphorical and more descriptive vs furthering the mysterious/metaphorical style
Replace numinous candle with insight vs keep the candle element
Numinous insights is missing a word in the middle vs we keep it at 2 words
Numinous nougats of insight sounds clunky vs that’s the right name
Numinous Insight Nougats ==> This is the final result! Can be abbreviated NIN, which is kind of cool.
Is the name beautiful and melodic? I don’t know, I’ll have to sleep on it. But I’ll keep it and I’m confident it’s original! One simple litmus test: I created a gmail address to go along with this Substack account and put in Numinous as the first name and Insight as the last name. The email address numinousinsight@gmail.com was suggested to me directly: Try that with “life advice” or “productivity hacks”.
So welcome to to the Numinous Insight Nougats newsletter! More Numinous Nougats of Insight are just around the corner for you.