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Previous: What's Your Thud Factor? by Janet Attard Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a great business idea, but forgotten it by morning? Or perhaps you were driving to a client's office, or riding on a train, and you had this terrific idea… but it slipped out of your mind after you arrived at your destination. And what about all those times you got a great idea while you were working on some project? You took a few minutes to start investigating the idea, the few minutes turned into an hour. Then, you had to rush to finish the project and never did anything more with the idea that had interrupted you. Good businesses grow out of good ideas. But all the good ideas in the world won't help you start or grow a business if you forget about them and never put them into action. Worse, all those good ideas can be downright distracting, causing you to lose focus and take longer than you should to complete tasks that need to be done now. Fortunately, there's a simple way to capture those ideas and keep them from interrupting your day: put them in writing. Writing the ideas down in a notebook or journal is one good way of capturing the ideas. When you get an idea and don't have the notebook with you, you can jot it down on a sticky note or put it in a word document or email and print it out - then staple it into your notebook. Another good way to capture ideas is to put them into a database on your computer. You can set up the database so you can enter categories for the ideas. You might set up categories for new product ideas, marketing ideas, joint venture ideas, etc. When you get ideas and aren't at your computer, write them down on whatever is handy and transfer them to your database as soon as you're at your computer. Or, if you can get and send email or from your cell phone, send yourself an email with the idea, then copy the email into your database later on. Writing ideas down like this benefits you in several important ways. Capturing the idea saves it so it doesn't flee away. Recording the idea in a place you can find it later "unclutters" your mind, allowing you to get back to what you were doing without wasting much time. Finally grouping all your ideas into a single location can help you see that proverbial big picture, which in turn, can motivate you to put your ideas into action. Comments Opportunities are not like helicopter's, they don't He who sat's on the red hot stove, shall rise. Barry Chandler Posted by: Barry Chandler on November 26, 2007 at 1:21 PM Google Notebook is a very handy tool for this purpose. You could have mulitple notebooks on different subjects\area of interest. Posted by: GigiJK on November 26, 2007 at 3:12 PM I put ideas on the voice recorder on my cellphone. It's been a feature on every cellphone I've owned in the past 10 years. Then I write the idea in the notes section of my calender program. That way I don't have to open another program. Posted by: Chuck Durec on November 26, 2007 at 4:17 PM Dear Sir, Posted by: K.S.Srinivasamurthy on November 27, 2007 at 1:04 AM Oddly enough, I always get ideas just before i fall asleep. I used to keep a paper & pen nearby, but could never read what I wrote, the next day. Now, I have a small microcassette recorder next to the bed. When an idea comes to me, i just reach up to pick it up & recorded my ideas. I must remember to speak distinctly, so I can understand it later. After I record my current ideas, Then I can fall asleep with a clear mind; since my thoughts are safely recorded, and not have to be remembered till the next morning. Posted by: kurt on November 27, 2007 at 1:08 AM I have been jotting down ideas for as long as I can remember. It is an excellent way to remember good ideas and then to follow through. After jotting down on a piece of paper, I transfer them to a notebook. I have lots of notebooks !! Posted by: Janet D on November 29, 2007 at 9:44 AM In most cases, after I must have observed my morning devotion and left for the bathroom, the ideas will continue to flow. What I did was to pronounce the keywords in the ideas that came to my read repeatedly and immediately I got to my room, I took up my pen and jot down the ideas immediately into my diary that i nicknamed: IDEA BANK. With the above article, I will try as much as possible to get a phone that has voice recorder. Posted by: MOSES on December 11, 2007 at 1:53 PM What is required (as I always say) is a standard template less than 1 page that we all should use to capture our ideas. Ideas a re great but there is very little that hasn't been done before. However, what budding entrepreneur's need is a format. Then they need to be able to post that initial idea to get feedback. Or present it to someone who can mentor them. I get loads of ideas but my credit score is extremely low, so after all the presentations etc to investors and banks, someone will want to credit risk assess me. And that will put the nail in the coffin, regardless of the reason, the bank or investor will run a mile, even if I invented a cure for aids. But they will steal the idea and run with it guaranteed. Never under estimate the lengths a business will go to poach your idea. Posted by: kevin boyles on February 11, 2008 at 8:14 AM |
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Copyright 1999-2012 by Attard Communications, Inc. and by the individual authors. |
I just finished reading the book "Getting things done" by David Allen, and he has a whole system mapped out to capture your ideas and then process them into actions steps. I have been using his method for 1 week so far and I have gotten a lot beter organized, but I still have a long way to go before I am super efficient. I use a pocket voice recorded to capture my ideas and them transfer them to paper at the end of the day. It requires pretty rigorous discipline to stick to it. But i agree, it seems that your business's competitive advantage comes from our ideas on how things can be improved.
Posted by: Steve on November 26, 2007 at 1:20 PM