I had an email recently from a gentleman participating in one of my corporate training programs. He has a dilemma …. his very active mind generates lots of interesting and (likely) high productive ideas but, in so doing, distracts him from the immediate task at hand. Being a raging idea generator myself, I shared with him my Number 1 “Simple Sound Solution” for this situation (from the archives).
Entrepreneurs are the mainstay of most economies. Internationally, the financial recovery is being credited to those sole proprietors and small business owners who are driving us forward.
But not every entrepreneur is successful.
Being an entrepreneur myself, I know that one of our characteristics is the sheer volume of ideas we generate. For some, it is a wonderful trait that can also be annoying because we often can’t get ourselves focused. In fact, we can easily sit for hours playing with ideas but never actually doing anything with them!
There is a big difference between having a wonderful idea and actually implementing it. And that’s the difference between the successful and the not so successful.
Action – Using a small 3″ × 5″ card box or something similar, create an Idea Safe.
Whenever a new idea, project or proposal pops into your head while you’re working on something else, write it out on a card, date it and put it in your Idea Safe. If that idea still gets you excited in 4 weeks, then it’s worth giving it some further consideration, If not, you can simply throw out the card.
In the meantime, you can stay focused on the priorities now, knowing your ideas are safely locked away for the future.