Brainstorming is as much of an art as it is a science. And when you brainstorm for ideas on what to write poll questions, it takes on a whole new dimension.

Learning how to brainstorm is easy. It may take everything you have to do it because it is brain-intensive, but usually the times are short and targeted.

The two main qualities in brainstorming is concentration and intense focus. You reject no ideas initially; you record them all. Write everything down or record the session. Use a whiteboard if necessary.

To emphasize, you never reject an idea (initially) because it’s a bad idea or undoable. That comes later. The idea is to increase the positive flow of information.

Sessions tend to last from five or ten minutes to a full week (Twitter was formed out of an intense brainstorming session that lasted an entire day). Your sessions should be intense and focused. It’s like a brain dump and that’s good because those five or ten minute sessions will be very productive.

To get all you can out of a brainstorming session, try to create a free environment, one that is clutter-free and organized. Brainstorming sessions typically have groups of three to seven people. That’s the ideal. Keeping the group tiny helps to keep the focus clearer.

Now you throw in the idea of brainstorming for poll questions. You may not have the luxury of having three to seven in your brainstorming group. It may be just you! That’s quite alright.

Make certain you keep the sessions short and focused. Give detailed instructions to the participants so they know what’s expected of them. Five to ten minutes at a shot will generate a lot of good ideas. Next, Choose an overall category: sports, current news, religion, politics, that sort of thing. You may want to narrow your focus even more: for religion, choose a denomination. For sports, narrow it down to one sport, for current news or politics, choose a current international situation. You get the idea.

Now you’re ready to sit down to think and record. Here’s how a typical session could go: Sports leads to baseball, which leads to a team, which leads to the Yankees, which leads to Derek Jeter. From there you see if there’s anything in the news about the Yankees or Jeter. Then you tailor a question (especially if you are in the New York market) that talks about the Yankees or Mr. Jeter.

As you do this more often, you’ll get better at it and it will be be easier. Be careful, though, because brainstorming is easy to take shortcuts with. Chances are good that you’ll uncover some other You may reveal several other questions that you can use later down the line. Five to ten minutes every time you do a poll is all it takes.