Idea Surplus Disorder #95

This week in Idea Surplus Disorder, we explore how an outcome orientation can help cut through information overload, why stakeholder power mapping makes complex initiatives easier, and how to craft the perfect AI prompt.

We also dive into some of the sharpest questions you can ask your team, an entrepreneur's reflections on turning forty, and why maintaining your psychological center of gravity in the real world is more important than ever.

Plus, if you’re tired of consultants forcing everything into a 2x2 grid, it’s time to experiment with ternary plots.

As always, there are fun finds, powerful wisdom, and a reminder that the best way to get unstuck might just be… doing less.

I'm Matt Homann, and I'm glad you're here!

Up Next From Filament

We're busy in March and April at Filament, with an incredible mix of free programming and professional development.

• March 7 | NSFW + SuperCollider: March 7th, learn how to connect your organization's purpose to strategy and work the rest of the day (solo or with your team) at Filament and CIC. 
• March 21 | EmpowerHer: Learn how to clear out negative self-talk and refocus confidence in a supportive, female-only space. Together, we’ll explore authenticity, accountability, and acceptance, leaving attendees with practical tools for stronger self-advocacy and a renewed sense of empowerment.
• COMING SOON: On April 18th, we're launching PlayDays. Unlike traditional workshops, PlayDays aren’t about expertise — they’re about exploring, experimenting, and learning together. Each PlayDay invites curious minds to attend, share insights, swap experiences, and “play” with the ideas and tools transforming work. In our first PlayDay, we'll demystify essential AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

You can find all of Filament's upcoming events here.

Ideas + Insights

"Outcome Orientation" as a cure for information overload:

At all times, whenever you are doing something or reading something, you should ask yourself the question: “What is the outcome I am trying to achieve here?”

You may then continue with the action or consumption if you wish, but you must answer the question honestly first. That’s it.

The point is not to control your time allocation, the point is to always be aware of why you are consuming something as you are consuming it. If you do this, you will automatically change your time allocation as a result.

Overwhelmed with juggling stakeholders on your next big initiative? Build a Power Map (HBR subscription article, but here's an image that might make it easier to understand).

1. Identify your potential stakeholders: Brainstorm everyone who might be affected by or have an impact on your initiative. Include obvious players like your boss and team members, but also consider “silent” stakeholders such as clients, external partners, or gatekeepers who control access to information and resources. 

2. Rate each stakeholder’s level of influence and interest: Next, on a scale of 1–10 (10 being the most, 1 being the least), rate how much authority or input each stakeholder has (influence) as well as how much they care about what you’re working on (interest). 

3. Plot stakeholders on a power matrix: Quadrant 1 includes your key players — those who have both high influence and high interest. Place those with high influence but low interest in Quadrant 2. They have lots of sway, but don’t care much about the day-to-day work. Quadrant 3 (low influence, high interest) includes stakeholders who should be kept in the loop. Deprioritize contacts that fall into Quadrant 4 (low influence, low interest).

Here's a way to structure the perfect AI prompt:

1. Goal – Define what you want clearly.
2. Return Format – Specify exactly how you want the response structured.
3. Warnings – Highlight any important details the AI should double-check.
4. Context Dump – Provide background info to improve the response.

There are so many thought-provoking questions in this list to ask your team. These are my favorites:

• What can we stop doing that won’t hurt the company?
• What do our customers ask for and our answer is always no? 
• What’s the biggest risk we’re ignoring?
• Where are we undercharging or leaving money on the table?
• Which customers are costing us more than they are worth?
• What’s working so well that we’ve stopped paying attention to it?
• If we had to double our goal in the next 30 days, what would be our first three moves?

Paul Millerd's forty thoughts on turning forty include:

• You can reorient your life in a new direction quickly, but the underlying rewriting of scripts and rewiring of your nervous system takes much longer than you would ever expect.
• Following your “bliss” as Joseph Campbell has put it, is one of the most worthwhile things to do with your life. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Following what truly matters means you must walk away from parts of yourself that you love and parts of yourself that others love. This can be quite the roller coaster of emotions.
• There are many rules worth paying attention to but many more are negotiable. We live in weird times and thriving in life likely requires weird approaches. If you aren’t shaking things up in random ways, you are missing out.
• I’ve never seen a single person become happier by spending more time following politics or the news.
• “Have you tried doing less on the problem?” is an underrated strategy to get unstuck. Most people try to do more.

Doomscrolling the news? Make sure your psychological center of gravity is in your real and immediate world:

Keeping your centre of gravity immediate and local ... means treating the world of national and international events as a place that you visit – to campaign or persuade, donate or volunteer, to do whatever you feel is demanded of you – and that you then return from, in order to gain perspective, and to spend time doing some of the other things a meaningful life is about.

If you're tired of consultants putting everything into a 2x2 Grid, start playing with Trenary Plots (a.k.a. triangle diagrams):

Triangles share the 2x2’s legibility and ease of rapid whiteboard sketchability. The memetic power. But 2x2s tend towards binaries and division.

Even Venn diagrams, another typical diagram, as combinatorial as they are, have underlying binary assumptions: something possesses a quality or it is outside the circle.

Whereas the triangle describes a landscape. Ternary plots seem to promote asking: well what if we could move slightly over there? Where are the tipping points, what’s the terrain? How would we explore this unmapped region? Curious? Here is chocolate and potato chips.

Fun Finds

• Where do ideas come from?
• Paper Airplane Design Archive
• Simple Physics Fun for Kids.
• CityGuesser is a geography quiz game.
• Eight hundred years of the architecture of the Louvre.
• MapCanvas creates minimalistic map posters you can buy.
• Pivot!!! Science has finally identified the largest sofa you can move around a corner.

Words of Wisdom

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. — Doris Lessing

If you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right. – Paul Graham

There is no such thing as fun for the whole family. — Jerry Seinfeld

If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. The same is true of any endeavor: if the solution you seek doesn't exist, create it. – Toni Morrison

We are very good at predicting the future, except for the surprises — which tend to be all that matter. – Morgan Housel

We have created a Star Wars civilisation, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. –Edward O. Wilson

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. – Ernest Hemingway

A boring conversation with someone doesn’t make the other person boring, it means you’re asking the wrong questions.  – Zinzy Walleson Greene

It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived. – Helen Walton

We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love. – Tennessee Williams