Ever felt like you’re living the same day on repeat?

Same morning routine… same mealtimes… same evenings in front of the telly.

After a while, it can start to feel like you’re on a treadmill.

Back in 2015, a software engineer called Max Hawkins felt like this, too.

On the surface, his life seemed good.

He had a job at Google, lived in San Francisco, and spent his weekends at bars, restaurants and events with friends.

But something was nagging at him.

He felt trapped in his life, as if an invisible computer algorithm was dictating everything for him, based on what he’d done before and what he already liked.

All his social media feed recommendations and existing personal connections created tighter and tighter loop of similar experiences, over and over again.

So he did something radical.

He used his coding skills to write a computer programme that made his decisions for him…

Completely at random!

First, he built a ‘random ride generator’ that sent him to surprise locations around the city.

One day it took him to a hospital.

Another time, a bowling alley.

Then a gay bar…

But he didn’t stop there.

Enthused by his experiments, he let the algorithm decide where he lived, moving to a randomly chosen city roughly every month.

For two whole years, Max Hawkins handed over the steering wheel to pure chance.

“In choosing randomly,” he says, I found freedom.”

This reminds me of a novel called The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart.

It’s about a bored psychiatrist who starts making his decisions by rolling a dice.

Where to go… what to say… how to behave …

All determined by chance.

This might sound like a scary idea, but it could be something you use in your own life.

Because the fact is, most of us follow the same pathways every single day.. the same routes… the same websites… the same people… and the same chains of thought.

Over time, those pathways narrow your view of what’s possible.

Because once your mind finds a pattern that makes it feel comfortable, it stops looking for alternatives.

But if you can find a way to inject some randomness into your day, it could help you:

• Get creative inspiration
• Avoid decision paralysis
• Get out of a boring rut
• And discover new aspects of yourself and your hidden abilities

Let me give you an example…

The Power of the Unfamiliar

Imagine your usual route to a favourite local place – like a shop, a park, or the pub…

You’ve done it so many times, you could probably do it with your eyes closed.

But if you were to take a completely different route…

One you’ve rarely, or never walked before.

Then you’ll notice that something happens.

It’s as if you suddenly become AWAKE.

You’ll notice all kinds of details… interesting houses… odd little side-streets… unfamiliar smells, colours and textures…

This is because our brains are largely prediction machines, operating on what we KNOW and EXPECT to happen.

So when you put it in an unfamiliar situation, it is forced to actively scan the environment, recalibrate and make constant adjustments.

This is how randomness forces your mind out of its slumber and into a state of heightened attention and curiosity.

That is the zone where new ideas happen, and where you can see possibilities that were previously hidden from you.

Can you see how this might apply to your home income projects?

You might be stuck in a rut with a product idea…

Paralysed by indecision over which direction to take…

Overwhelmed by too many options…

Or simply struggling for fresh ideas.

In which case, injecting a bit of randomness is a way to unblock yourself.

How to Unstick Your Thinking

The good news is, you don’t need to write a computer programme like Max Hawkins did.

You can now use AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT to generate random prompts, challenges and suggestions tailored to whatever you’re working on.

Step 1: Define an area where you feel stuck

Rather than a broad category like, “I feel stuck in my life”, try giving AI one specific area.

➡️ “Help me inject randomness into my Substack newsletters.”

➡️ “Help me break my routine around exercise and health.”

➡️ “Help me find unexpected inspirational accounts to follow on [SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORK]”.

➡️ “Help me find fresh angles for my [SPECIFIC TYPE OF] work.”

➡️ “Help me make my week more varied and interesting without derailing my responsibilities.”

You could next ask for specific categories of randomness…

Step 2: Ask AI for Random Inputs

Use a prompt like this:

➡️ “I feel stuck in a rut with [AREA]. I want you to help me introduce useful randomness including unexpected inputs, fresh constraints, odd combinations, and small experiments (without making my life impractical). Ask me 5 questions, then create a 7-day randomness plan.”

Or if you are struggling with a business idea or product development and marketing you could try

➡️ “Give me 20 random prompts to shake up my thinking about [TOPIC/GOAL]. Include weird combinations, unusual audiences, unexpected references, sensory prompts, and deliberately awkward constraints.”

Or if you are creating content you could use:

➡️ “Give me 10 random ingredients I can mix into my [TYPE OF CONTENT] today: one object, one historical figure, one emotion, one location, one problem, one audience, one taboo opinion, one household item, one scientific idea, and one childhood memory prompt.”

Just pick a few then see if you can get them into the thing you’re doing.

Step 3: Add Constraints

Constraints are artificial limits that you impose on yourself in order to force a new way of thinking.

For instance, you could try the prompt:

➡️ “Give me 12 strange but useful constraints for writing [CONTENT TYPE] about [TOPIC].”

An AI tool might suggest:

• Write it as if explaining it to a suspicious taxi driver.
• Open with a physical detail.
• Use a metaphor from gardening, football, plumbing, or cooking.
• Argue the opposite of what you normally believe for 10 minutes.
• Explain the idea using only objects found in a kitchen.

Then choose one and then go with it to see what comes out. It’s okay if it doesn’t work – you are simply re-energising your approach and waking up your brain.

Step 4: Create a Random Collision Generator

This is especially good for solving problems, or hitting on interesting and unique business ideas.

The idea is that you force an AI tool like ChatGPT to smash together ingredients and come up with random combinations:

• a specific audience.
• a common frustration.
• a product format.
• a personal interest.
• a trend.
• a strange metaphor.
• an everyday situation.
• tools and platforms.
• a worldview or political/social angle.

You can pick some of these and them use a prompt like this:

➡️ “I want to find unusual home business ideas. Create a Random Collision Generator for me. Give me 5 columns:

• Specific audiences of adult people
• Everyday problems, frustrations, fears, or desires
• Publishing formats, such as PDF guides, checklists, newsletters, printables, templates, mini-courses, coaching, affiliate sites, local services, or digital downloads
• Publication and marketing platforms
• Current trends, habits, technologies, or cultural shifts
• Metaphors, objects, scenes, or situations.

Then randomly combine one item from each column and turn the results into 20 possible home business ideas.

I put an input like that into Claude and it created an automated randomising tool for me, like this:

It totalled 20 ideas, with the option to ‘roll again’ for a whole new set.

When I clicked on ‘ingredients’ for the Divorced Dad Recalibration Planner it gave me:

• WHO Divorced men learning to cook and keep house
• PAIN Feels five years behind everyone their age
• FORMAT 90-day printable wall planner
• WHERE TikTok short-form video
• WAVE Loneliness epidemic driving demand for community
• SPARK A toolbox where every tool is the wrong size

One of the other business suggestions was ‘The Introvert’s Pocket Buying Guide Cards’

“A set of pocket-size reference cards sold on Amazon KDP covering the five product categories introverts most often overbuy and regret: software subscriptions, home office furniture, audio equipment, notebooks, and productivity apps, with a one-page decision matrix on each card that ends the comparison spiral in under three minutes. It works because subscription fatigue means people are actively cancelling and reassessing purchases, introverts over-research more than any other personality type, and a physical card sitting on a desk feels more trustworthy than another browser tab.”

Pretty cool, huh!?

I expect that if you do the same it will give you a slightly different design, like this:

But you can always prompt an AI tool to give you another design.

But if you don’t like using AI there are other options…

Offline Randomness Generators

You can use traditional methods of stimulating ideas and seeing the world anew:

• Take a different route on a normal walk and photograph three odd details.
• Work for 45 minutes in a different room, café, library, or bench.
• Read one article from a website or publication you normally ignore.
• Message someone you haven’t spoken to in six months.
• Cook something using one ingredient you rarely buy.
• Buy a newspaper with an opposing ideological outlook
• Follow 10 random Substacks or social media accounts in areas you wouldn’t normally consider
• Sit in a waiting room, bus, or queue and eavesdrop on some people, taking notes of what they say.
• Pick a random page in a dictionary or encyclopaedia. Read the full entry. Then ask yourself: how could I like this idea to something I am working on?
• Attend a public event completely outside your usual world, like a parish council meeting, a local auction, a community choir recital.

I recommend in all cases that you keep a log (on your smartphone or in a notebook) with all your thoughts, impressions and revelations.

These may become useful fodder for ideas!

And don’t worry…

You Don’t Have to Go Full ‘Dice Man’

There’s no need to make your most important life decisions totally at random.

Really, this is just about shaking things up and stimulating your mind, so that you can get out of a rut.

It may be that the random thing that gets suggested doesn’t work or is too crazy to pursue.

But it’s the process of engaging with the unfamiliar that’s most important.

Once your brain is firing on all cylinders again, the good ideas will come, I am sure of it!

So if you’re feeling stuck this week, ‘roll the dice’!.

You might be surprised where it takes you.