Tom Stafford uses Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies, a card deck of "worthwhile dilemmas," to solve problems:
[The] cards say things such as "Remove elements in decreasing order of importance", "Honour thy error as a hidden intention” or simply "Water". … Collecting information like this in cards recognises that the creative process needs an element of randomness, that making thoughts physical makes it easier for us to play games of invention with ourselves, and that too much organisation can sometimes restrict what we know – the information might be all there in a textbook, but the ends are all tied off, stopping our current state of mind latching onto what is needed. Invention comes naturally from inside ourselves, but sometimes we need a spark to set it off.
The Dish 