You’re working on the next big thing.
You’re past the exciting first steps.
You’re in the
roll up your sleeves and work stage.
Then you have an idea.
This idea is even BETTER
than the idea you’re working on.
It is new and shiny and exciting.
So you abandon your previous project
and switch your efforts
to the new idea.
You do this again and again,
working hard
yet never truly accomplishing anything.
I’ve seen this happen
with entrepreneurs
and with writers.
One of my buddies
has twenty-three stories half finished.
I suspect she’ll have twenty-four next week
when she gets another ‘great’ idea.
The new product development team
at a major beverage company
taught me how to deal with
shiny new ideas.
We had a huge whiteboard
and, when an idea came,
we’d park it on the whiteboard.
We’d feel good
because we ‘did something’ with the idea
but this doing didn’t distract us.
I do this now.
I have a list of my top 100 story ideas.
When I get a new idea,
I stick it on the list,
drop another idea off of the list,
and then return to the story I’m writing.
Product ideas are only great
if we launch the product.
Fight the next product distraction.