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Never Let Your Ideas Go

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Have you ever had a brilliant idea? The one which seemed wonderful at a time, yet you weren’t motivated enough to make a note of it, or you genuinely had not a chance to jot it down? The regret of not acting immediately on such an idea is capable of causing a major nervous breakdown – simply because you will blame yourself for letting such an opportunity go.

I know I’ve had quite a few of such ideas lost forever, before I had finally decided to never let any of them go. After all, if there is only one brilliant idea I get in many years, I simply can’t afford losing the chance to be proud and successful it gives me!

What are the main reasons you let ideas go away?

For me, these reasons were the following:

  • Not being able to write an idea down
    Your circumstances could be different, but for me this was the most limiting factor.Very often, I would list to some music while driving to and from work. Certain compositions might trigger a sudden sparkle of ideas in my mind, and I would usually feel really excited about it. Still, by the time I would arrive at the destination, walk up to my desk and get a moment to type, I would forget the idea and only the residual joy of having a bright idea would stay with me for a few minutes more.

    This is when I get both upset and irritated. Especially if I don’t remember anything about my idea at all. Somehow it would make it feel as if I let the greatest chance of my life go away. The thing is, if I can remember at least some part of the idea, it may be a relieve to realise it wasn’t such a great idea anyway. But when I don’t remember anything, it is very upsetting.

    I’ve narrowed this problem down to not being able to write my ideas down when I was driving my car. By the time I would enter my office, the idea would be lost. Quick change of the environment around you is bound to distract you from whatever it is you were thinking.

    So in situations like this, even a simple trick can make dramatic difference.

    For me it was getting the cheapest kind of a paper notepad with pencil, and putting them into the plastic door pocket in my car. Now, whenever I get a really good idea, I can always write it down if I’m parked, or if I’m not, I know that I won’t have to leave my car and risk forgetting the idea.

    I also make an effort to concentrate on the idea even more. Turn off the music, and start developing the idea – adding more possible features to it and looking for possible ways to make the idea even a greater one will help you remember it better. When I finally arrive, I don’t leave my car until the idea is written down. And if it needs be, I can always tear one of the notepad pages to take the important note with me and then put the task into my electronic ideas repository.

  • Not seeing the value of the idea
    This is another very common reason for discarding some really great ideas. Remember: if you have identified a particular flow of thinking as a separate idea, you need to make a note of it.Some ideas are never meant to be easy-to-understand. They’re just not as obvious as some other ideas of yours. This doesn’t mean they’re wrong or useless. All it really means is that you have to save such ideas and review them in a few days (weeks) time. By that time, you’ll likely to have thought up and written down many more ideas, and who knows what meaning and value the original idea would have then!
  • Letting an idea go because you think it is stupid
    However small or worthless it may seem, you have to write your idea down and give it a proper thought at a later time.I’ve found it most useful to write down anything which comes up when I’m thinking on a particular subject, and later (usually in the evening) I spend 10-15 minutes just to scan through all the notes and use the most appealing ideas.
  • Not being able to identify the use for an idea
    Your idea doesn’t have to be immediately useful or applicable piece of knowledge!Just write it down now, and analyze it later. You’ll thank yourself many times for doing so.

    It is very common that the best ideas come unexpected, and seem irrelevant to the topic you’re trying to think of. That’s okay! Take the note, and you can classify the idea later!

Write your every idea down

Get into the habit of writing your ideas down. Make it one of your first steps towards a really successful life. Never let your ideas go, because:

  • this way, you will never feel like you’ve lost the greatest opportunityThere is nothing worse than feeling regret for the rest of your life simply because you haven’t written some idea down. It could be a silly one, too – but it’s the fact that you don’t know this for sure that will make feel like you’ve lost something
  • making notes of every idea will greatly improve your chances for success

    Not all the ideas have to be successful. Think about it: all it will take to make you successful is just one great idea.Many inventors came up with hundreds of absolutely useless ideas. They invented stuff which made no sense even to themselves, let alone others. Yet, they meticulously documented every experiment of theirs, every tiny detail and though they had. They kept trying, until one day all the pieces came together, and great discoveries and inventions were made.
  • you will become more organized
    Making notes of every idea will get you into a habit of reviewing all the ideas quickly and spotting good ideas right away. This will allow you to immediately pay more attention to them, without having to come back later with a proper analysis.

For all the ideas you come up with, there’s a rule of thumb: save them. Write them down, and even if you never feel like analyzing these idea, that’s okay. Someday you’ll read one of them accidentally while looking for some other useful information, and you’ll be shocked at how much sense it will make to you.

Learn the habit of writing every idea down. It could be a short phrase or even a word, but if it inspired or interested you for even a second, write it down immediately. This way, you will never let an idea go, and who knows, maybe one of your ideas will be the greatest discovery of tomorrow?

Introducing a friendly blog: Radical Hop

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I think I’ve mentioned RadicalHop before, but today I’ve decided to start another good tradition on Personal Development Ideas – introducing the friendly blogs I read.

RadicalHop is a relatively new (just like mine) personal development and self-growth blog by Peter Kua. Peter lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and is a very passionate writer with broad interests and an open mind.

He reads a lot and writes easy-to-follow articles on achieving goals, building a successful career, finding the right balance between physical and spiritual aspects of your life, and generally enjoying your life.

I’m a regular subscriber of his blog, and we quite often email each other just to follow some interesting topics up.

If you’re looking to read something interesting on personal development, please have a look at some of his articles I liked:

Plan Your Time For Writing New Articles

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I’ve been trying to find the best way to keep up with the task of a regular new articles writing for my blogs. Unfortunately, it’s not the easiest task imaginable. I mean, it’s been a good few years of me blogging, and I still haven’t found the right approach. But I never surrender so easily, and so with my Personal Development Ideas blog I’ve inspired myself so much that recently I’ve decided to continue my research.

And what I find very useful now to ensure new articles get written and posted regularly is this: I simply plan for the time I’m going to spend working on the articles. Only the best of us can just sit down for half-an-hour a day and provide brilliantly witty content which then gets popular among the people. But for others, and I’m one of them, writing a new article isn’t as easy. There has to be some research carried out, some books read and some blogs (re)visited.

I usually write a few paragraphs of text on a given topic and then sit back to simply think them over just once more. It’s very unusual for me to go back through my text and spend extra time reading it all again, fixing typos and changing sentences. I’m usually more like “do it once – forget till the next time”. So if I’m writing an article, I’m so thrilled with the ideas I’m talking about and sharing with readers, that I simply know that there is no way and no point for me to re-read my paragraphs – I will not be willing to change a single sentence.

Yes, there is a price to pay for this. Sometimes I have to spend an extra minute or two on a particular sentence, simply because somewhere deep inside of me I feel that the sentence isn’t going to serve the purpose I have for it. And so I keep trying various forms and words, until the sentence looks exactly like it should. But if I accepted it and moved on, I’m very unlikely to come back to it and edit it.

I don’t suppose this approach is the best one, but it had worked for me so far, and so I’m happy.

When you agree with yourself on a particular time in your day which you’re going to spend on writing your articles, you’re effectively making all your plans much more real. As with many things, agreeing on something means some kind of commitment. And once you’re committed to something, you’re much more likely to follow through simply because now you know: not only were you going to work on articles, but you have just made a promise to do so, you’ve committed yourself.

Another positive side of having a certain time designated to writing for your blog is that if you book this time for your own use, and finally agree with everyone else not to interfere, you’ll end up having this time all to yourself.

Even if you think you ran out of ideas, you still have time left to continue your work. You’ve committed to working on articles, and so if you’re not writing – start planning new ones. Work on the titles, think of new post series, or simply read some of your old articles one again!

I think I’ve learned it from Steve Pavlina’s pages, that you’re going to be much more productive if you allocate substantial amounts of time to every particular task and tackle tasks one by one. While in many cases you can multitask, I believe you really should do concentrate and refrain from doing anything else when writing.

In his Do It Now article, Steve explains why it is very important for you not to get distracted during your working on something hours. Once your focus is lost, it will take you at least 15 minutes to regain it. Because of this, it’s better to have 45-60 minutes allocated to any task- if you don’t get distracted, you’re going to have enough time to write a sketch for a serious article or even complete a simple post. And if you have been distracted, you’re still going to have enough time to regain your focus and finish the work.

Don’t Be Afraid To Be The First

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It is incredible, how many things never get their chance to be done simply because we’re afraid to be the first ones to even try. We fear rejection and lack of acceptance, we fear a possible failure, and we generally would rather scrap a great idea than be courageous and adventurous enough to be the first. Well, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Why is being first so damn hard?

Why do we fear so much being first in doing something? Simply because it comes down to another very powerful fear of ours – the fear of the unknown.

We usually don’t like it when there’s something unknown about what we do or what we’re going to do. Facing the unknown means to us leaving the comfort zone, and we don’t generally like doing that, do we?! ;)

We also realise deep down inside, that being first in anything implies much more attention paid to you. And we usually don’t like this kind of attention, simply because we expect nothing positive out of it. What’s one of the first questions you ask yourself planning something really adventurous for the first time? That’s right! What’s the worst that could happen! No wonder you’re afraid to act! You’re asking the question before anything happens, and you’re already implying that something bad will happen.

Being first and feeling comfortable

People who make discoveries and set new records are just like everybody else – they’re not superhuman and they are not even necessarily talented The only unique feature about them is that they’re not afraid to be themselves! They are willing to do what it takes to reach their goals. And being the first ones is not only acceptable for them, but they welcome such an opportunity.

Why? Because they create positive and powerful beliefs related to their plans. They understand that everybody fails at some point, but they also realise that failures are nothing but an invaluable experience gained the fastest way possible. They have an ultimate vision of their goal, and if it’s going to take them a few failures to get there – it’s absolutely fine.

Setting the right beliefs is very important!

Making the impossible possible

Have you ever noticed the magic which happens every time someone achieves the unachievable? Making impossible things possible is one of the greatest joys you can have on this planet, because not only it gives you the victorious feeling, but it also empowers many others push a little bit harder and achieve the same!

Look at the modern technology, for example. The discoveries made today on a daily basis were believed to be impossible just a few years ago. Yet, as soon as a discovery is made, hundreds of other companies and research institutions immediately accept it and start using.

With sports, the magic of a breakthrough is even more obvious: it is widely believed that human body’s capabilities are well known and maxed out by modern athletes, yet old records are broken and new ones are set every Olympic game! Isn’t it amazing? Things nobody could do just a few years ago, are now possible and practiced by many athletes simply because now they know that it can be done!

Just think about it: virtually anything we do every day was believed or proclaimed to be impossible sometime in the past! Yet here we are, making progress every day and act on things without even questioning the possibility of so many things we make happen daily.

Don’t be afraid to be the first

You can’t overestimate the power of being able to set the right beliefs in order to be the first to do something. If you master the skill of setting positive beliefs and making powerful associations to the success of being the first, you’ll be unstoppable in anything you do.

Below I’d like to give you a list of common beliefs you can change to make any breakthrough possible. They have helped me, and they will help you. Spend few minutes a day working on setting positive beliefs and getting rid of the negative ones, and you’ll be thrilled with the immediate results!

  1. If something had never been done before, it’s not possible at all
    WRONG! All this means is that nobody cared enough or tried hard enough to make it happen. All the most influential breakthroughs and discoveries were made this way: everyone believed something was not possible, and then one courageous person questioned the whole world and proposed an alternative theory. All it takes to make something possible is to shift your beliefs and expectations. If everyone believes you to fail, it still doesn’t mean you will!
    Trust your feelings, and have the faith and courage to be the first!
  2. If I don’t make something happen, someone else will
    WRONG! You are a unique human being. This means that every minute your mind has many thoughts running through it such a way that it may never occur to anybody else on this planet. Hey, some thoughts may never occur again even to yourself! That’s why it’s important to take notes of your ideas, after all!Don’t wait for somebody else to make a breakthrough. You can’t afford to miss your chance!

    Be adventurous enough to question everything else around you, and only by doing that will you make a success of being the first one to achieve something!

  3. Leaving your comfort zone is dangerous
    It sure feels like this, doesn’t it! But that’s not entirely true.Won’t you feel much proud of yourself if you do something different today, leave your comfort zone and do something outrageously unusual, and even make a success out of it?

    The danger of leaving your comfort zone is rarely a physical one. Mostly you just don’t want to change your behaviour patterns and sacrifice the comfort for the sake of a questionable success.

    But just think of this: only leaving your comfort zone makes you grow. Only by challenging yourself constantly you can progress and achieve better results. Only by thinking differently and looking at situations from a new angle you can make a breakthrough discovery.

    So go on and do this! Be adventurous, have the courage to challenge yourself and achieve the unachievable!

  4. What if I make a mistake? It’s going to be a disaster!
    While this is definitely an option, it’s up to you to make your project a success. Also, stop thinking it’s going to be a bigger problem simply because you’re the first one to try! Understand this: being the first to do something does not make the task harder to accomplish in any way but mentally. It is all about your approach, your expectations and your motivation, and nothing else.If it’s physically hard for you to do something no one had done before, please be assured that it’s going to be just as for to do the same for anyone who will follow you. The only advantage they’ll have is that they will know that it’s possible, because they will see you do it first.

    Stop expecting the worst. Concentrate and apply yourself, try your best and forget about how you will look if you fail. Focus on the goal, and think instead about how you will look and feel when you succeed. Be positive! Doing something for the first time ever doesn’t have to be negative.

Have all the motivation you need to be the first

Here are just a few of the highly motivational reasons for you to become first in doing something:

  1. Once you are number one in anything, you will remember this feeling forever.
    This is one of the most powerful motivators you can ever hope to find: become a winner and remember how good it feels. Plan a goal big enough, and you’ll get all the attention and admiration you ever dreamed of as soon as you achieve it!
  2. Once you have accomplished something impossible, everyone else will follow you.
    People will do this simply because now they know it can be done. And you are the one that made it happen! How cool is that?! ;)
    It’s incredible how many people still need reasons and proofs that some goals can be achieved, some things can be accomplished and some new records can be set.
    Don’t wait for them, be the first one and get the joy from making something possible and real for everybody else!
  3. Enjoy constant growth by leading others and challenging yourself on a constant basis. It’s a never-ending game, really. Once you realise how powerful the joy of setting an example for others is, you’ll want to set new records and reach new goals even more. You’ll want to do something even more adventurous, and get even more please by seeing others following you.Enjoy the feeling of growing stronger and better everyday, simply by leaving your comfort zone and gaining new skills and experiences.
  4. Being first is both challenging and fun!
    Whenever I see a possibility of being the first one to write/say/do something valuable, I always welcome such an opportunity and challenge myself to do my best and achieve the goal.I love challenge, and I hate people trying to discourage me without giving any reasons. I absolutely disagree with blindly following rules and limitations simply because others think I should. When I think of doing something adventurous and someone walks up to me and says: “Hey, forget it. I’ve tried it already and it doesn’t work”, I always ask for reasons and explanations. If something is “simply doesn’t work”, to me this sounds like “someone didn’t really try” ;)With technical problems, it could also mean that someone had used up all the immediate potential and it was easier for a person to give up than to continue the search for a solution. Again, I love such problems because it will make me feel much better when I solve them and help others by doing so. Challenge yourself to be the first one to do something! The joy of being the first (and for a short period of time – the only!) one to have coped with the challenge is definitely worth it.

I guess that’s it! I certainly enjoyed writing this one today, and I hope you’ll follow me in setting the right set of believes to achieve even better results in everything you do.

We live in exciting times! Every day there is a magic of something new and beautiful being created and brought into this world. Who makes all this magic happen, you wonder? YOU and me. Everybody.

Writing Productivity Tips

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As you could probably guess from my previous articles, I like plain things and simple approaches. I don’t think there is any benefit in making our lives even more complicated than they already are. And because of this, I’m always looking for new ways to make tasks even easier to accomplish, and things even simpler to deal with.

Today I’d like to talk about some of the incredibly simple tips I use daily for creative writing. Now that I think about it, these tip are good for any kind of writing, really.

 

 

In any kind of activity, you have to find the state of mind where you’re not only committed, but also fully focused on your task. With writing, it’s very important to feel comfortable. Lots of factors will affect your level of comfort, and in this article I’d like to share the factors I found most important for myself. Hopefully, they will help you get more productive too.

  • Clean and tidy workplace
     As simple as this factor looks, it’s one of the most important ones for you. If you’re working in your home office, make sure your desk is as clean as possible. It should also be free from any unnecessary objects. Tidying your desk before you start any work is going to pay off, so never hesitate to spend a minute or two doing this before you start working. Put books on shelves and paper notes into paper trays (I’ve got 3 trays for GTD, so when in doubt I just put the miscellaneous paper notes into the “In” tray).
  • Quietness or comfortable music background
    It’s highly arguable whether you should leave any music playing at all, so you’ll have to find what works for you best yourself. I’m definitely seeing improvements when I switch from songs to instrumental compositions – when you stop hearing words you concentrate on your task much easier. Find what’s most comfortable for you. I find it best to switch working environment – one day I’ll try writing an article or two in our bedroom, with no music at all. On another day, I’ll listen to some instrumental music while working in my home office. On yet another day I could enjoy the softness of a leather sofa in our living room and listen to some music with my iPod. See what works for you.
  • 45 minutes of time
    This is something I’ve started doing only recently myself. Plan for your creativity time. Put it in your calendar and make arrangements with your family that you’re going to have at least 45 minutes of uninterrupted time to yourself and your thinking and writing.I can’t stress enough the dramatic difference this simple tip will make! When you have nothing else planned for the time and you’re not distracted with other tasks, your productivity level increases and you get into the creative state which makes writing a much easier task.

    Don’t forget to get rid of your mobile. I leave it in another room and ask my wife to answer all the call while I’m writing.

  • Go full-screen
    If you have gone as far as booking the time for your writing, you might as well take it just one step further: close all the programs running on your PC, so that you don’t get distracted by your instant messenger program or an incoming email. You can close practically everything, but pay special attention to those applications with built-in notifications – you don’t want any of their reminders popping up while you’re writing.Go full-screen in your favourite text editor, and get rid of all the toolbars. Try and make it all configured so that there’s only your text and nothing else on your screen.

    You can go full-screen in MS Word or Writer from OpenOffice, and few tweaks and settings will help you get a very comfortable full-screen mode. Make sure you go away from the classical “white background-black text” color scheme, as it’s not the most relaxing one possible. Find your combination, if your editor is flexible enough. If it is not, then simply go for ANYTHING different – like white text on blue background in MS Word – feels MUCH better for your eyes.

    Here are the things I’ve done in my MS Word to minimize distractions:

    1. changed the color scheme to “white text on blue background” (Tools–>Options menu, General tab)
    2. got rid of rulers (View->Ruler option)
    3. changed the scale to “page width”
    4. switched to a full screen (View->Full screen)

    After all these steps, there’s only a blue page for your wonderfully white text lines, plus a tiny yet terribly annoying “Full screen” toolbar. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to completely get rid of it; no matter what I did, it would try and get docked to one of the side panels. So if you know a workaround for this – I would really appreciate it if you told me!

Try applying these tips for a few days, and I’m sure you will see your writing productivity, concentration and even creativity levels go up! And as always, if there are any writing productivity tips you feel like sharing, please let me know!

Improving This Blog’s Feed

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Since I’ve enabled full-text feeds, I’ve seen that almost every subscriber of Personal Development Ideas feed now reads me through a news reader and rarely makes it to the actual website.

While this was the idea – make things easier for you, I’ve just noticed a few days ago that because of this all the feed readers miss out on the related articles section of posts. That’s why I’ve been working on bringing such functionality into feeds as well.

Let me know what you think.