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1-Page Summary of Making Ideas Happen
Overview
If you are watching TV one day and come up with an idea, you should present it to your bosses. They may agree that the idea is great and want to pursue it. However, if they don’t know how to make the project happen, people will lose enthusiasm for the project and eventually abandon it.
Great ideas fall by the wayside when they aren’t executed properly. Here are some key points that will help you turn your great ideas into reality. First, smartphones are ruining our lives; second, we should work like best-selling author John Grisham; finally, don’t hire people based on their experience alone.
Big Idea #1: Every task can be broken down into action steps, references and backburner items.
Your company is gearing up for a big sale, but you’re at a loss for how to get started. You have no idea where to even begin.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were overwhelmed by the amount of work that was being asked of you? It’s not fun! Luckily, there is a simple way to avoid this problem. All projects can be broken down into three main categories:
The first step is to create an outline or ask your boss some questions. Then you should complete those tasks and move on to the next one.
References are pieces of information that can be useful to your project. For example, if you’re pitching a product, it would be helpful to have sales forecasts or analysis of the market competitors.
Finally, you have items that are not immediately relevant. However, they may become so in the future. For example, while designing a presentation or preparing for a meeting is important, it’s not necessarily urgent. You can do these things later if you don’t have time to do them now. It’s also important to separate your project into different categories because failing to do so will leave you stressed and distracted because your mind would be too crammed full of thoughts to concentrate effectively on what really matters at the moment.
Big Idea #2: Think in terms of action and your projects will always be moving forward.
Imagine that you have a new product idea. You want to get your company involved, but they don’t have anything to sell yet. So you organize a brainstorming session with the best and brightest minds in your company, who come up with some seemingly excellent ideas. However, when you get back to your desk, none of those ideas are actually achievable because many projects fail due to their inability to take action. This happens often because we do things out of habit instead of taking action on them.
For example, a weekly meeting to get everyone up-to-date. Weekly doesn’t mean that it happens when something important happens; instead, it means every week. These meetings often end up being a complete waste of time because you don’t leave with anything new to do in most cases.
To avoid procrastination, always think in terms of action steps. Whenever you have an idea for a task, write it down immediately.
Imagine you are taking a shower and realize that you forgot to follow up with someone about something. As soon as you get out of the shower, write down “follow up with X regarding Y” on your action list. Just make sure your hands are dry enough so that the ink doesn’t smudge!
It’s important to capture the action steps, because they create momentum. Even if you take small actions, it will be easier for you to move forward in your goals.
Big Idea #3: Time spent reacting is time spent losing.
The team that is able to act positively and develop offensive moves will be more successful in a sporting event. In the same way, you can tell if your job is going well by asking yourself who’s acting (developing positive moves) and who’s just reacting. Unfortunately, most of our time at work is spent simply reacting to other people and information instead of being proactive. This has only become worse with technology, where it’s easier than ever for us to share ideas with others. If we had communication tools 100 years ago like we do today, it wouldn’t have been worth sending messages about smaller issues because they would almost certainly get sorted out on their own anyway.
