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It can happen anywhere, any time. In the middle of the night, on a bus ride, during a shower, while drinking your morning coffee. A business idea comes to you that — in the moment — feels like the next great thing. But today we are here to tell you to stop trusting your ideas. Yet what should you do instead?
If you are the visionary type who has a lot of ideas for that next great business, they can be pretty distracting. So instead, write them down in a notebook, a tablet, your phone … anywhere that you can come back to them months or even years later and they will still be there. When or if you do, odds are that only one out of every hundred will be a great idea. Remember that even for visionaries, usually ideas are not that good — which is okay, by the way! Because the thing that matters is what you do with them.
The first benefit of this idea journal strategy is that you will get the ideas out of your head and into the real, concrete world. Ideas can be distracting when they are circling around in your head, because our brains kind of love to be distracted. We have squirrel brains! Or as David Allen says, “Your head is for having ideas not for storing them.” So get the whole idea out!
A second benefit you will soon discover is that the very act of writing down your ideas will help you come up with better ones. Even while…
