Finding smart solutions to your problems or coming up with new "million dollar" ideas for a is not a matter of "being smart", but rather of "doing some things the smart way". Keep on reading to find out what are 2 simple steps that will instantly make you smarter and also way more productive.

All successful inventors, millionaires, scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, writers, painters and marketers have been using this simple, yet also very overlooked and neglected strategy to either finding solutions to particular problems or to coming up with new "million dollar" home based business ideas.

Yes, I admit it. I thought this is a big nonsense as well, but when I gave it a try and experienced it for myself, I was shocked and surprised how well it works. Follow these 2 simple steps and you too will experience how well it works.

The first important step when it comes to creativity is problem input - having a strong desire to come up with new solutions or ideas how to deal with a problem you want to solve or a barrier you want to remove.

You see, your creative mind works very similar to the computer. Actually, it is more opposite, but you get the point.

Output (solution or idea) is always a consequence of an input (problem). Just as like computer has input (keyboard, scanner, mouse, mic...) and output devices (screen, printer, speakers...), we humans all have input and output devices as well.

If you want your creative mind to give you desired output in the form of new ideas and "light-bulb" moments, you first need to give the right input to your mind - a burning desire to solve a problem in the form of opened questions that can not be answered just with "Yes" or "No". Such opened questions start with "How..", "Where..", "What..", "Who..."

For example, suppose you had your own website, blog or email newsletter. Since you know fresh and interesting content such as articles, tips, tricks, reports and strategies keeps your visitors and readers coming back to your site, and this keeps making you money, you want to be publishing as much fresh content to your site as possible to keep them coming back.

But you have a problem. You have a regular day job and you know that publishing fresh content either takes time (if you're producing it yourself) or money (if you're outsourcing the production).

Now you want to find a solution how you could add fresh and interesting content to your site without even producing it yourself and without paying a cent for it.

You can already see the input "how" question hidden in previous sentence. In this case, you would simply ask yourself a question like this at least 5 to 10 times:

1. "How can I get more fresh and interesting content for my website for free without producing it myself and without paying for it?"

If you truly have burning desire to get new ideas and to solve a problem of any kind, your subconscious mind will sooner or later give you the answer (see step 2 below). I think "making more money" with your blog or site should be enough good reason for you to have strong desire to solve this problem.

Please note that even though answering this question goes beyond this article, I've however included a few links here for you to some of the content sharing sites where you can get fresh and interesting content for your site or blog for free without paying a cent for it.

Here's another example. Suppose you wanted to make 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times more money than what you're making now with your day job or online business.

Among hundreds of home based business opportunities available to you these days, you want to find such profitable home business opportunity, where you would get the highest long-term financial rewards and return for your time and money being invested as possible.

Again, step #1 is inputting a "problem" in the form of an opened question such as:

• What would be most profitable and legitimate way for me to making money online?
• Where can I find the most profitable and legitimate home based business opportunities to make the most money for my work?
• Where can I find some new and profitable home business opportunity so I can be among the first in the business?
• How can I work less and make more?

Again, answering these questions probably goes beyond this article, but I've however included a good resource if you're interested somehow about finding an exciting new home business opportunity and making anywhere from extra $1,000 to $50,000 each month.

Once you have input your problem with opened questions and you truly have a strong desire to solve it or to come up with new ideas (such as ideas for a home based business), it should already be embedded into your creative mind and your mind will already be working on it by this time.

But here comes the most interesting part...

Crazy ideas and answers which you never gave a thought will start popping into your mind from nowhere when you at least expect and when you think your mind is turned "off".

Plese don't ask me for scientific explanations behind it, but this will usually happen when you are doing something relaxing. For example:

• when you are under shower
• when you're walking a dog
• when you're napping
• when you're watching TV
• listening to music
• jogging
• cooking
• fishing
• ...

I would bet that you have experienced this before but you probably just didn't pay your attention to it. Idea or answer just pops into your mind from nowhere.

But remember, your ideas will leave even faster than they arrive -- if you don't write them down, your next "million dollar" idea will probably go to waste.

The truth is, you have this amazing power of creative thinking and 90% of people who experience this power usually think or say something like: "I don't need to write it down. I will remember it anyway".

Or something like "I'll keep it in my head".

It is funny, but history tells us that the other 10%, who wrote down their ideas become famous or successful in some way. No matter how crazy or stupid your ideas might seem when they show up, it is vitally important you jot them down immediately for your future references.

If you're near a computer, write them down into a text document and save this document or file onto your desktop for quick access. Perhaps you will want to create a special document in Google Docs or a new notebook in Google Notebook just for the purpose of writing down your crazy ideas.

I personally love both Google Docs and Google Notebook because, because I can access, manage or edit my documents or notebooks from any computer with Internet connection.

When you're writing down your crazy idea, you don't need to bother with formatting the text or checking if the spelling is correct. Just write them down so you can later come back to them.

You could also write them down into your mobile phone. Or even better, voice record yourself if your phone supports sound recording features. No matter how you save your ideas, the key thing here is to save them.