One warning: Passive brainstorming routines can easily slip into procrastination. That comfortable corner at Starbucks might become a spot too social for much thinking or writing. When your productivity drops, change tactics.

Build from lists. Write down every plausible topic or, if you already have a subject, the major points you might cover. Don’t be picky at this stage: List everything that comes to mind. One idea will lead to another, then another. Even grocery lists work this way.

For instance, preparing a letter to the editor in defense of collegiate sports, you can first itemize arguments you’ve heard from friends or have made yourself. List the counterarguments you come up with too — as well as any relevant examples, news events, or people. Then pick out the more intriguing or plausible items, and arrange them tentatively, perhaps sequencing them by time or pairing arguments and counterarguments.

Map your ideas. If you find a list too static as a prompt for writing, another way may be to explore the relationships between your ideas visually. Some writers use logic trees to represent their thinking, starting with a single general concept and breaking it into smaller and smaller parts. Others begin with a key concept (just a word or two), circle it, and then begin to free-associate, quickly writing down more circled concepts and linking them by lines of relationship. When a page is full, writers look for interesting patterns, connections, and ideas.

Try freewriting. This is a technique of nonstop composing designed to loosen restraints we sometimes impose on our own thinking. Typically, freewriting sessions begin slowly, with a few disconnected phrases and words. But, suddenly, there’s a spark and words stream onto the paper. Although freewriting comes in many forms, the basic formula is simple.

STAGE ONE

STAGE TWO

Like other brainstorming techniques, freewriting works best when you already know something about a subject. You might freewrite successfully about standardized testing or working at fast-food restaurants if you’ve experienced both; you’ll stumble trying to compose freely on subjects you know next to nothing about, such as, perhaps, thermodynamics or the career of Maria Callas. Freewriting tends to work best for personal narratives, personal statements, arguments, (understand arguments) and proposals, (understand proposals) and less well for reports and technical projects.

Use memory prompts. When writing personal narratives, institutional histories, or even résumés, you might trigger ideas with photographs, yearbooks, Facebook pages, or perhaps a Twitter feed. An image from a vacation may bring events worth writing about flooding back to you. Even checkbooks or credit card statements may help you reconstruct past events or see patterns in your life worth exploring in writing.

Search online for your ideas. You can get lots of ideas by simply exploring most topics online (or in a library catalog) through keywords. Indeed, determining those initial keywords and then following up with new terms you discover while browsing is in itself a potent form of brainstorming.