How to come up with ideas

Ideas are currency for freelance writers. Googling around about better ways to come up with better ideas, I found a tip from Weinburg (with no first name reference unfortunately). It is called the 'fieldstone method'. She or he suggests that if you collected two or three interesting looking stones a day you could eventually build a wall. The analogy is that you should collect ideas in the same way with the aim of leading to bigger and better ideas. They suggest you make a note of two or three things a day that interest or bother you as you go about your day. Eventually, you will start seeing patterns as ideas coalesce (what a great word that is) around some central themes. Creativity and innovation are not about coming up with something completely new in a vacuum, Instead ideas build from other ideas and over time, thanks to your gathering of daily jottings about things that interest/bother you, you will eventually see a trigger for an even bigger idea - a feature, book, programme, website, business idea. Good luck.