WHAT

Generate a new option by changing the action itself or the target it aims at.

Planning your one big trip of the year, you have been comparing flights to three European capitals for a week. Prices climb, none of the itineraries excite you, and the whole exercise has quietly become a chore. Every option on your list is the same trip with a different city name pasted in.

WHAT generates a new option by changing the action itself or the target it aims at. In the framework's option sentence, where each plan has slots for actor, action, target, mechanism, timing, scale, and rules, this move edits the action or target slot while holding the rest. The cue is a set of candidates that vary only in surface labels. Run it in two passes: first change the target (instead of a capital city, a coastline, a festival, a friend who moved abroad), then change the action (instead of touring, take a cooking course, walk a long trail, do a work-remotely month). Each edit is written out as its own full option. What changes visibly is that your list stops being one idea in three costumes and starts containing real alternatives. Do not reach for this when the action and target are fixed by the goal itself, such as a wedding you must attend; there, vary how or when instead.