You have them hundreds of times a day, yet do nothing with them. I am talking about ideas, ones that could potentially change the way you do business, or ANYONE does business. Yet most of the time you forget about them, don’t revisit them, or dismiss them as a pipe dream.

So few entrapenuers keep an idea journal to track and monitor ideas that could be implemented someday. It doesn’t have to be right now, it doesn’t have to be two years from now, the important thing is to always be tracking and reflecting on your new ideas.

Let me paint a scenario and think about if it sounds familiar:

An idea pops in your head, it sounds like it could work but you are not sure. You think about it a little more and it doesn’t seem like anyone else is doing it, at least not correctly. You go back to work, every once in a while that idea pops in your head again but you remember that it would be a large risk/effort and you are not sure it really would “take off.”

This is pretty typical, most people are trained not to rock the boat. If you are comfortable then there is little drive to try and improve things. However the most successful business people are those who are constantly pushing to gain more momentum, more revenue, more marketshare.

Instead I propose you do the following:

When an idea comes into your head, write it down into a journal under a section called “new ideas.” Put as many notes about it as possible so you can remember all the important aspects. Once a week reflect back too that journal and go through your ideas and rethink them. Any ideas that feel absolutely ridiculous, infeasible, or out of reach put into another section of the journal called “dead ideas.” Any ideas that could be successful but simply can not be done now put into a section called “on hold.” In that section write down the criteria the idea would need before you could start working on it. Any ideas that could be done right now, that would be sucessful write into a section called “planning” and list out the next 10 steps to get the idea off the ground.

Once a month reflect back to each of the sections. Take actions to push the “planning” ideas further, see if any of the criteria could be met for the “hold” ideas, and make sure that the dead ideas are still dead. Innovations in technology, increase in funding, and even new contacts can rescue a brilliant but infeasible idea into a revolutionary change.

What you will find is the implementation and development of more and more ideas. While not all ideas will pan out into life altering changes, some of them will. This method of R&D and business growth is often the difference between average companies following the coat tails of the industry, and the companies who are pioneering the latest and greatest.

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