Mindideas

Mindideas is a term used in discussions of creativity and cognitive processing to refer to ideas that originate in the human mind. It is not a standardized term with a formal definition in psychology or linguistics, but it appears in design thinking, innovation discourse, and informal writing as a way to distinguish internally generated ideas from externally sourced inputs.

The word is a blend of mind and ideas. In practice, mindideas may denote the raw products of cognition, including insights from memory, imagination, and problem framing. It can be used to describe the seed concepts that later undergo refinement.

Methods to capture mindideas include journaling, note-taking, brainstorming, and mind-mapping. Evaluation and development processes, such as critique, prototyping, and testing, are used to transform mindideas into viable concepts.

Because of its informal status, the term can be used loosely and may overlap with ideation, inspiration, or design thinking. Some critics warn that focusing on internal ideas can undervalue collaboration and external information.

See also ideation, creativity, cognitive science, design thinking. Not a fixed term; meanings vary by author.