AbstractSeparation of variables is a well‐known technique for solving differential equations. However, it is seldom used in practical applications since it is impossible to carry out a separation of variables in most cases. In this paper, we propose the amplitude–shape approximation (ASA) which may be considered as an extension of the separation of variables method for ordinary differential equations. The main idea of the ASA is to write the solution as a product of an amplitude function and a shape function, both depending on time, and may be viewed as an incomplete separation of variables. In fact, it will be seen that such a separation exists naturally when the method of lines is used to solve certain classes of coupled partial differential equations. We derive new conditions which may be used to solve the shape equations directly and present a numerical algorithm for solving the resulting system of ordinary differential equations for the amplitude functions. Alternatively, we propose a numerical method, similar to the well‐established exponential time differencing method, for solving the shape equations. We consider stability conditions for the specific case corresponding to the explicit Euler method. We also consider a generalization of the method for solving systems of coupled partial differential equations. Finally, we consider the simple reaction diffusion equation and a numerical example from chemical kinetics to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. The ASA results in far superior numerical results when the relative errors are compared to the separation of variables method. Furthermore, the method leads to a reduction in CPU time as compared to using the Rosenbrock semi‐implicit method for solving a stiff system of ordinary differential equations resulting from a method of lines solution of a coupled pair of partial differential equations. The present amplitude–shape method is a simplified version of previous ones due to the use of a linear approximation to the time dependence of the shape function. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.