Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea...

...It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference. ~Nolan Bushnell

What you need is a way to follow up on your ideas. The trouble is usually the best ideas, insights and flashes of inspiration happen at an inconvenient time to write them down.

Driving, showering, exercising, any repetitive task that uses minimal brain activity is actually a great way to generate ideas and bring thoughts out from your subconscious...but they need follow through, otherwise they turn into distant memories or forgotten altogether.

Follow up requires a capture tool, any way of getting your idea into some kind of memory bank that you can retrieve when you have more tools at your disposal. If you're driving, hit your office voice mail on the speed dial and leave a message to yourself. If you're exercising put the weights down, get a pen and paper, write it down, throw it in your locker.

If you're in the shower, say it out loud a few times so you'll either remember it when you get out or your spouse comes in and asks what's wrong, then she can write it down for you...

The point is it takes a commitment to remember and follow through. How many times have you seen some great idea take off and said to yourself, "I thought of that once, but I didn't do anything about it."?

What's different is follow through and execution. Once you commit to, and set your life up to receive ideas i.e. by making sure you have some kind of capture tool strategy in place, you'll start to find you come up with more ideas. The act of writing an idea down is sometimes the best way to generate more ideas.

Get some notepads and pencils in strategic locations; make sure you can leave yourself a message at home or office with one push of a button; consider one of those little micro recorders; don't be afraid to borrow a pen and paper from someone...we all do it from time to time.

The main thing...give your ideas and brainstorms the respect they deserve...and a funny thing happens...

they keep showing up.

Now go jump start your day.

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